


Shadow's Wake Prehistory

by Damona999



Series: Shadow's Wake [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: And about a dozen other potentially offensive topics connected to Midevil era views, Apathy, Battle, Broken into Acts and Chapters, Death, Depictions of medical practicies and the treatment of wounds, Depictions of wartime violence and gore including but not limited to:, Depression, Gen, Genocide, Harsh Language, Mentions of Character Death, More tags can and likely will be added in the future, Nightmares, Novel length Chapters, Other, Platonic Relationships, Potential refrences to or suggested PTSD, Recovery, Refrences to child abuse, Scattered refrences to future events and characters, Severe if not lethal or mortal injuries and potential descriptions of said injuries, Shadow's Wake AU, Survivor's Syndrome, Torture, prehistory, racisim, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-10-17 23:05:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 66,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10604148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damona999/pseuds/Damona999
Summary: Prehistory is set to take place just prior to the war between monsters and humans where relations between the two were strained but 'seemingly' stable. And as you might expect by the tags and warnings, it's meant to encompass everything that occurred throughout the war as well, or what I'm able to fit into it as far as that goes. I may add on small deleted scenes or shorts later on, but that will be at my own discretion and leisure, though I may consider requests.I'm not very good at giving descriptions and I really can't do much of a summery without probably ruining quite a few plot points... So suffice to say you're probably better off just enjoying the ride for however long you want to stick around and read.Several things are going to be popping up that certainly couldn't and wouldn't have happened in the original Undertale lore...But nothing so incredibly changing as to make the characters too horribly different from current day Undertale. *Glances at Underfell and other AUs that do change the characters.*You can expect a whole lot of extras and characters that definitely don't exist in the game, but that's just reasonable considering this takes place more than a millennia before then.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First off, going to apologize for a few of the tags turning out a bit odd, tried fixing it a few times and I just couldn't figure out how to make them work the way I wanted. And now that that's out of the way...
> 
> Shadow's Wake Prehistory is the prequel to another project I've had planned for a while called Shadow's Wake. It's an AU idea that just wouldn't leave me alone and started to eat up my day, so I'm writing what I hope will be two fan novels for it now. For the moment Prehistory is taking the spotlight due to spoilers that will appear in Shadow's Wake otherwise, and I can't have that happening. As stated in the tags this is an Undertale fan work, so I'm adding in a declaimer right here for my own peace of mind if nothing else.... 
> 
> Disclaimer: Undertale owned by Toby Fox
> 
> And while we're on that note. This AU was inspired by the glorious respective works of the talented the3Ss and zarla.  
> If you haven't seen the3Ss Casting Rain fan novel, or zarla's Handplates AU, available for viewing on Deviantart I advise you take a look at them.  
> Also, since I'm bringing up Deviantart, that's the site I normally use for this and it's the one I primarily focus on. I already have chapters 1-8 posted and available for viewing on Deviantart, I go by the same username on that site as this one for the sake of convenience. All content is subject to change regarding sentence structure and other things within the realm of reasonable editing, descriptions ect. Nothing too impactful will be altered in the foreseeable future, story line will remain the same as you see it in the first read through, so don't be concerned about missing anything important and needing to go back to catch up.

**Every story has a beginning, every tale has an end.**  
    **So, what then, when the tale ends before it is explained where the story began?**  
**What is left for us to search for but...  
****Prehistory?**

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
**Act 1**  
**The Day The War Began**  
\----------------------------------------------------  
\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Chapter 1**

A gentle breeze whispered softly through the towering trees of a massive shadowed woodland, sending flickering waves of motion through a dense canopy of interwoven branches and deep green leaves. Mist crept silently across the ground in this ancient land, obscuring both tracks and undergrowth alike as surely as it swirled almost forebodingly around the trunk of every tree. These were the woodlands of Cree, a place where no human dared tread carelessly for fear of those who resided within. To any outsider these lands looked threatening and dangerous. To one who had lived there for any length of time however, it was all too easy to see the reassuring signs of life in their shadowed recesses. It was simply a forest like any other. It may have been older and it might have reached far farther then many, but it was still simply a grove a trees. To human eyes its nights seemed to hold a note of terror and its days seemed to dangle a wordless threat over any who entered its misty reaches. But to the eyes of those who called The Woodlands of Cree their home, to the eye sockets of a skeleton, there was no more beautiful place in the world.

The night cast creeping shadows over all within and the mists whispered through its reaches like silent dancers. They beckoned young skeletons down hidden trails, guiding them to secret wonders only meant for their kind. With the dawn came a shifting change both enchanting and heartwarming, the promise of adventure vanishing underneath the weight of something far more precious. The dawn brought with it a sense of belonging that their kind could know no better than in the shadowed places of the world where their people had first come into existence. Though to the eyes of humans the forest was still dark even after mid day, a skeleton's enchanted vision was far better suited to darker places. A skeleton could see the glimmering light that fell upon the canopy above them, an almost magical shimmer that shifted shadowed greens to vivid emeralds. What seemed to be weak and waning light filtering through minuscule gaps in the interwoven branches and leaves to a human, were as welcoming, glittering shafts of liquid gold and warmth to any skeleton.

In this particular corner of the woodlands of Cree, a small town known as Mistfall had been built at the bottom of a misty hollow set beneath a hill. Its nights were filled with good spirit and kindhearted cheer, the mist that whirled around every building serving as nothing more than a good excuse to surprise friends and family alike with an unexpected visit. Laughter often filled every household and the inn was always lit with a soft enchanted glow that sent a warm tingling shiver of magic through any who entered. Both skeleton and traveler alike could laugh and drink the night away over tales of lands far off, dreaming of days unseen and reaches unexplored. It was rare for anyone to visit Mistfall, though its residents had seen their fair share of odd creatures making their way through. Humans might not have gone so deep into the woodlands, but such could not be said for all monster kind. The skeletons of Mistfall had seen everything from ghosts to dragons make their way through the town, and on rarer occasion even royalty would visit for a time.

On this morning, one skeleton in particular was bound to leave the woodlands of Cree behind for the far off royal capital of the monster kingdom. The town of Mistfall was a great distance from the center of the kingdom, though with the right route and the proper motivation, a skeleton could reach the walled city after no more then five or six hours of travel. Normally it would take someone entire weeks to traverse the full distance. Fortunately enough, Mistfall had been built a mere ten miles away from what had become one of the largest trade routes in the kingdom. There were some monster species that would have felt uncomfortable living so close to an area where humans had been known to come and go in number. However, the woodlands of Cree offered a solid barrier against any unwanted intrusion. Though they had no true geographical advantage aside from the forest itself, the skeleton clan that called the woodlands their home didn't need to worry about humans trespassing. The shadowed paths and towering trees had always been enough to set mankind at a comfortable distance, and it was only every now and then when one of their kind would get lost and turn up on an old hunting trail. After so much as a few hours lost in the forest, any human fortunate enough to meet a skeleton that was offering help would gladly take directions back to the border despite the strained relations between their two races.

Normally the residents of Mistfall slept until well past dawn. A habit they, like most other skeletons, had developed in ancient times. Their kind was more nocturnal by nature than most other nonhuman species, though they had adjusted to more daylight hours than many would have argued they were meant for. Most commonly, a skeleton saw somewhere between four and five hours of sleep every night branching off into the hours of morning. The more health obsessed individual would insist that no less than seven hours and no more than eight were necessary for proper sleep, though many would disagree. Most skeletons saw the hours of night as no different from daytime, and many thought it was a terrible shame to waste them. It was for this reason that one W.D. Gaster slept only two hours the previous night before the beginnings of daylight filtered through the open window in his study and fell upon his slumbering form. The skeleton, had, as many times before, fallen asleep reviewing a number of his notes on rare chemical mixtures and their reactions to magical stimuli. He was an alchemist and a doctor by trade, though he had chosen the profession more out of a genuine interest than anything else. Gaster enjoyed puzzling through the mysteries of the world and solving problems when ever he found that his calculations had led him to something useful. The subjects of his inquiry constantly changed and he rarely spent two nights on the same project, often shifting things about if nothing else to avoid loosing interest in any one task.

The alchemist twitched slightly when the trailing tendrils of light fell upon the tips of a number of his fingers, though it was not until the sunlight found its way across his skull that he finally started to wake up. It would have been an odd sight to walk in on to say the least and perhaps somewhat unnerving considering he had fallen asleep with his eye sockets open, not for the first time. He was half draped over his desk, his normally neat black tunic wrinkled and hanging open partially in the back due to his slumped over posture. The skeleton's spine and the first number of his ribs were even readily visible, standing out crisply against the backdrop of black cloth. After a few moments he breathed for the first time since he had fallen asleep and a quiet sigh that most people would have missed escaped his motionless form. A white spark slowly faded into view in either of his eye sockets and he blinked a bit drowsily, sitting back up and yawning slightly. Gaster blinked a few more times and ran a hand over his skull at the sight of the mess he had made of his notes after falling asleep while reading through them.

It was perhaps a bit reluctantly that the alchemist began to resort the papers. And after a short while he bound them into a tight stack which he promptly took over to a cupboard to be filed away with a great number of similar bundles. More out of habit than precaution, he closed the wardrobe length cabinet and called on his magic to lock it from the inside. The cracks between the cabinet doors glowed blue for all of three seconds while he summoned a spare set of hands on the inside of the cupboard and the magical constructs swiftly worked the latches closed again. After they had finished, the blue glow faded and Gaster nodded silently to himself, pacing back over to his chair to retrieve his alchemist coat from where it had ended up. It wasn't truly an impressive garb. And it resembled more a robe than a coat if anything... though the long black garment was still useful in its own ways. He slid on the soft black coat and straightened it after a few moments, swiping a hand over the front of it several times to whisk away what wrinkles he could.

He had never really gotten used to its trailing sleeves, which always seemed to hang annoyingly loosely around his wrists. Though he had been grateful enough when he simply found an alchemist coat that didn't reach all the way down to his heels. Gaster preferred functionality over grandeur, and unfortunately most of the alchemist coats that were made close to his size had been crafted with the opposite opinion in mind. For all of his efforts, it had still taken him a great deal of time to find anything that didn't have an extra two feet added to its length so the coat would drag across the floor when the person wearing it walked. After that, the rest of the coats had possessed a sickeningly thorough layer of embroidery. And he didn't even want to think of all the metallic studding he had found on the others that had been offered for sale. With a sigh the skeleton paced over to the window and pulled it firmly shut, latching it in place only to end up rethinking his decision and pulling it open again. He leaned out of the window slightly and tugged the storm shutters closed, locking them in place first and then closing the window once more. A soft click filled the air when he forced the last latch into place, but other than that he didn't really make much for noise. He glanced over the window for a moment with an air of satisfaction and soon left his study, quietly closing the door behind him.

Gaster was expected at the castle that morning, though after waking to see such clear daylight filtering through the trees, he was in no rush to leave. For the first time in a while, he would take the time to relax and eat before he set out. If nothing else, it would help ease the king's worries about how absorbed he was in his work. He had known the current patriarch of the monster kingdom for at least a century, since just before the ending of King Theril Dreemurr's reign. He had been no more than an unknown alchemist visiting the capital for the spring solstice celebration back then, when the profession was still the first stages of its infancy. If anyone had told him what would have happened after he had been mugged by a number of humans and lost the mixtures he had brought with him to the capital, he would have laughed at them back then. However, after King Theril fell unexpectedly ill, it had been Gaster who found the cause, more out of fortunate circumstance than anything else.

Thinking back on everything that happened in the fifty years afterward that he remained in the capital after he first set out, he couldn't help the slight smirk that twitched at his scant features. He had never been one to believe in luck, fate, or anything beyond predictable probability. When ever he looked back on that time however, he couldn't help but muse to himself over the unknown. Who would have thought that he would have ended up a close personal friend to the future king, now the current monarch of the monster kingdom? True, there had been rough patches. And it had been a true disaster explaining everything regarding the chemicals he had lost before reaching the city, but it was not as though the entire incident hadn't been smoothed away after long enough. With Gaster's help, King Theril had recovered from the poisoning, of which a number of humans from the northern lands of Yilmar were proven to be the culprits. And he had earned a lifelong friend in the king's eldest son Asgore. It had been only a number of years later that King Theril stepped down from the throne to grant his son the title of king, a practice that was not too uncommon when one considered how long their kind lived.

Asgore had ascended to the throne and taken the lady Toriel as his queen, ushering in a new era of hope and prosperity throughout the kingdom. Theril from then on more or less became an enigma. He would disappear for sometimes months or even decades on end and then return to the castle as though he had never left. Few if any saw him within the capital anymore, and those who did would remark that he seemed far happier than he ever had been when he was king. Some gossiped about the possibility that Theril had become a diplomat and his long disappearances were due to the often strained relations between the monster kingdom and its human neighbors. But, few took those rumors to heart. Largely it was simply accepted that the former king was enjoying life for what it was. And his disappearances were nothing more than Theril taking the time to see the kingdom he had protected for so long, grow and thrive under the guiding hand of his beloved son.

The alchemist allowed his mind to wander while he worked his way down into the kitchen of his relatively small two story home. Like most other skeletons, he never bothered lighting candles or setting up enchanted torches to guide him through the dark, mostly because he didn't need to. His enchanted vision sliced cleanly enough through the gloom and he didn't particularly care for wasting time or energy setting up anything elaborate. After reaching the first floor he stretched somewhat and worked his way to the kitchen, pausing briefly while the glanced over what supplies he had collected a number of nights ago. With perhaps too much reluctance, Gaster broke off his train of thought and paced over to a counter top where he carved a portion off an untouched loaf of bread. In addition, the skeleton collected a small section off a block of cheese and a number of grapes as well before he sat down at a relatively small table in the center of the room. His home was sensibly small. Fit only for one skeleton to live in and it didn't really have any room for any guests, which made it perfectly fine for him. When ever the king visited, he simply rented a room for Asgore at the inn and saw to it that everything was made perfect for him. And after the first time his friend insisted upon seeing where Gaster lived, there hadn't been any argument over which arrangement was better.

The skeleton found his mind wandering again while he ate and before long he was staring out the nearest window, watching the breeze send rippling waves of scattered sunlight streaming through the canopy of leaves above Mistfall. It was truly a lovely day. And the more Gaster watched the sunlight shimmering against the mist filled air, the more he found himself simply longing to enjoy it. His breakfast was gone before he even realized it and he found that hardly a moment had passed before he was locking the door behind him on his way out. It wasn't really necessary to lock doors or shutter windows in the quiet town of Mistfall. But the alchemist had always been cautious. And the amount of care that he put toward everything he did had only grown more prominent after the incident that led to his friendship with Asgore. The lone skeleton soundlessly threaded his way through the misty streets and shadowed cobbled paths that twisted through the town, hardly a whisper of a breath betraying his presence. A familiar sense of peace trailed along behind him when ever he stared up at the looming forms of houses and buildings yawning out of the misty darkness around him. When ever he felt as though the rest of the world was growing too chaotic, when ever it felt as though the humans were growing too aggressive, the sight of the sleeping town always reassured him.

Deep in the shadowed woodlands of Cree, there was no need to fear what the dawn would bring, no need to concern one's self with the intolerance of others. Mistfall was its own little world, lost to time and locked away from the rest of the world in the shadowed embrace of the misty forest that held its people safe. Gaster nodded politely to a number of guardsmen on his way past the outskirts of town, unable to hide a soft smile of his own when they waved goodbye to him with broad grins. The town guards knew where he was off to. And quiet wishes of safe journey whisked through the air to him as the alchemist climbed the hill leading out of Mistfall.

At one point the ground had likely been even rather than sloped in such a severe manner. However, the exact methods used to build Mistfall had long been forgotten. It stood in a small misty hollow guarded by sloping hills on every side. Meaning that where ever one intended to travel, they still had to climb before they could start on their way. This bothered Gaster perhaps less than it would have any outsider who decided to visit the town, for he had traveled to and from Mistfall a great many times before. And despite having looked out across the woodlands from the crest of the hill on countless occasions, he still found a surging energetic hum in his soul when he reached the other side. He had been right of course, the breeze that tugged on the canopy above cast shimmering waves of light through the shadows and mists in a breathtaking display that he would not have missed for the world.

The alchemist must have stood there for a good half hour alone simply watching the waves of shimmering light dance across the mists and send shifting ripples of liquid gold through the gloom. After he at last found that he could bare to disturb the surreal scenery and begin on his journey to the royal capital, Gaster was already leaving far later than he by any rights should have. Still, when he strode towards the thicker woodlands around the town, he found that there was no rush in his step that day. He would cover more than enough distance to reach the royal capital well before evening set in. And he could always make up for lost time when he left the forest behind. As it stood, he was still making decent time even at a leisurely pace. And it was not long before he could no longer see the hill that marked the entrance to Mistfall. Gaster didn't particularly mind how quickly he still seemed to be traveling. After all, the woodlands of Cree were a vast territory all their own, and it was not as if he would leave behind the dancing shafts of sunlight any time soon.

The lone skeleton found himself humming some nonsense tune that he had heard as a child, breathing deeply the scents of moist earth and damp tree bark with an air of contentment about him. The soft breeze tugged at his coat almost welcomingly and the dappled sunlight that broke free of the canopy felt warm against his skull, refreshing almost. The forest around Gaster felt tranquil. It was truly a beautiful day. And despite his better judgment, he found that he was taking his time to enjoy the sense of peace that pervaded the air. He knew that it would not be long before some terrible news reached him again that would once more send him into a mess of calculations and predictions regarding the ever seemingly random behaviors of their human neighbors. However, for the moment he was not going to permit any worries he might have had regarding the outside world to interfere with the first leisure day he had taken for almost six years.

Unbeknownst to Gaster, he was most certainly not alone in the woodlands that morning. And he was definitely being watched by none too friendly eyes. A single human archer stealthily crept through the mists to shelter under the shadow of one of the ancient trees, silently drawing an arrow free of a fully stocked quiver strapped to his back. He tracked the skeleton's progress with cold hatred burning in the depths of sleepless, bloodshot eyes and after a few moments he fired on the unwary traveler. The faint sound of a bowstring being released reached Gaster when the human sent the arrow towards him, the strange and certainly out of place sound snapping him back into awareness. Fortunately enough, he had caught the arrow surging towards him in the very edges of his peripheral vision. And before he had even known it for what it was, the alchemist flung himself backwards to avoid the shrieking projectile. He didn't quite recognize what he had dodged at first, until after the arrow passed mere inches from his face, his soul giving a startled lurch in his chest at the sight of it.

Gaster's eye sockets widened in surprise, a bright yellow glow overtaking the ordinarily white sparks within their shadowed depths. An odd almost knot like feeling settled into his soul when he felt the fletching graze across his skull on its way past, and if he had a stomach he likely would have found himself rather ill. As it was, he found that for the first time in what seemed more than a century, he was fearing for his life. The skeleton stumbled backwards after the unexpected reverse lunge and fought to regain his balance when the moist ground shifted underfoot. The sense of tranquility that hung over the forest had been unexpectedly shattered and replaced by a smothering blanket of dread, the woods themselves seeming to grow silent under the pressure of dark intent. Gaster was too far from town to call for help now, and no one would hear him even were he to try despite this fact. The alchemist had left alone, traversed through the woodlands unaccompanied, and without so much as a scrap of armor or weaponry to his name. The most he had brought with him was his simple alchemist coat and what magic he held within his slender form.

The human wordlessly drew another arrow free of his quiver even as Gaster began to peer at the woodlands around him skittishly. And soundlessly, the hunter prepared to fire again. He was joined by at least a dozen other archers who quietly crept up alongside him and settled into the deepest pools of shadow the forest had to offer, each one mirroring his preparations. As if a silent order had been issued to them, the archers fired in unison on the skeleton's position, each arrow spitting free of its owner's bowstring within moments of one another. Fate seemed to favor the alchemist this day however, for he caught sight of a faint glint from the shadows when one of the archers' arrows unexpectedly passed through a dim tendril of sunlight. Despite only catching the warning gleam in the very edge of his peripheral vision, it was enough for him to have time to react to the second attack. Without a moment of hesitation, the skeleton whirled around and summoned a solid wall of interwoven bone between himself and the direction from which he had seen the telling glimmer of steel.

And it was fortunate he did not hesitate, for he soon found himself suppressing a shudder when the small barrage of arrows struck against his magical defenses, shattering upon the summoned bones. The sound of steel sinking into solid bone and the splintering of wood nearly bothered him as much as the slight strain he could feel on the construct while it absorbed the numerous attacks. As with most magic involving actually creating something, weather or not it was manifested as energy alone or something more physical... Gaster's awareness extended to any constructs he created, though the connection was by no means strong enough to cause him pain or any real discomfort when the summoned bones took damage or were destroyed. Still, he felt each penetrating impact and every glancing blow that the wall protected him from, even if the strikes felt like nothing more then minor waves of muffled force to him. He didn't want to think of how painful taking all of those arrows would have been, though at present the thought of damage he had successfully avoided was perhaps the least of his worries. At present, he was far too busy trying to make sense of what was happening around him while staying collected enough that he could still defend himself. This should not have been happening. It should not have even been possible that the humans had ventured so far into the woodlands of Cree. Mankind feared the shadowed lands where he and his kind resided far more than anywhere else. And most dared not stray within them for even the most desperate of reasons. They were terrified of the skeleton race far more so than any other being they labeled monster. The humans should not have been there. And yet, there they were, attacking him without warning, provocation or obvious cause.

The archers hidden among the trees were not the greatest of Gaster's worries, though they were a serious problem that he would need to deal with in time. The more immediate threat became obvious only a short while later when a harsh bellowing voice issued from the darkness, swiftly followed by the clattering of weapons and armor. "Swordsmen to the front! Archers, pull back and hold!" Armored boots crushed delicate undergrowth underfoot and churned up the moist earth in response to the hidden human's harsh commands. And Gaster, found himself dispelling his shielding wall of bones in favor being able to see as much out of his surroundings as possible. Foot soldiers charged free of the misty darkness, the shadowed forms of fully armored humans flooding out of the woodlands surrounding the lone skeleton with the obvious intention of cutting off his escape. He couldn't see their leader yet, though he could still hear his bellowing voice when ever the human spoke. And of one thing he was certain, Gaster didn't like what he heard next.

The human directing this attack hadn't raised his voice to issue another command, but to mock the alchemist as though he had already won the battle. "Looks like we found one boys!" It might have been true that Gaster was outnumbered and surrounded, but he was not entirely helpless by any means either. He might have been irritated by the grim laughter that trickled through the human's voice like tainted honey. He might have even been angered by the way the human spoke, as if they were pleased by the supposed good fortune of running into him in the middle of the forest where no one could come to his aid. However, the arrogance of this human was far less of an annoyance to him for the moment and more of a concern. Humans could do surprising and unpredictable things when they believed an easy victory was within their reach. And they only grew more dangerous when it became clear that they were mistaken.

Gaster had observed enough minor skirmishes over the course of his lifetime to know that this was no joke. He had walked right into a trap and the situation would only grow more dire over time. The alchemist hesitated where he was, his gaze flickering between armored opponents and the shadows beyond them. He was no warrior, no border guard or militiaman. And even had he been, there were simply too many of them for him to fight on his own. It was true that he still had the advantage of his magic to consider, but how many of the humans could he keep at a distance just with his bone attacks alone? In truth, he had never even so much as thought of taking up lessons in hand to hand combat. And with him being so outnumbered, it was inevitable that at least a few of his attackers would be able to reach him at some point. He was vastly out of his element here and he still had the archers hiding somewhere among the trees to worry about. He knew for certain that if he did by some miracle find a way out of this... he wouldn't be able to do so without killing at least a few of them, providing he had an opportunity to use his magic on proper attacks instead of only being able to defend with it.

The last thing he wanted was to stain The Woodlands of Cree with human blood, especially when it meant that the relations between mankind and his people would only deteriorate further over the incident. Gaster would have preferred to disarm the situation completely. To explain to them that he wasn't a warrior, that he was just an alchemist and a doctor. Unfortunately, these humans in particular didn't look like the sort that could be reasoned with. And he honestly doubted that they would simply sit still to watch him carve an opening in their ranks so he could escape. He sighed somewhat defeatedly and his posture grew lax, his shoulders sagging slightly. There was an air of disappointment and what was perhaps bitterness about the skeleton as he closed his eye sockets, clenching his jaw in preparation for what was to come. Just once, he wished their kind could behave logically and reasonably, that they could assess a situation rather than rushing into things without a second thought. Human lives were short and fragile enough without their increasingly reckless abandon for life and limb. How could they not see that he didn't want to fight them? How could they fail to understand that he didn't want to kill them? For all of the skeleton's wishing however, still they came and still he would be forced to defend himself.

The archers hidden among the shadows shifted through the misty darkness and spread out to circle the trapped skeleton, a brief number of minor gaps forming in the ranks of melee fighters to grant them clear view of their target. The commander's next orders rang cold and crisp in the still morning air, the mist that clung to the forest muffling out and silencing his words before they could echo so much as once. "Archers! Loose!" Silent as wraiths the humans moved, listening only to their leader's orders while they fixed determined stares on the motionless skeleton that lie before them. Arrows left quivers and slid soundlessly into place. Bowstrings stretched with quiet groans and released with muffled twangs, another volley of arrows surging free of the shadows from all directions towards Gaster.

This was the last of the humans' ranged assault as it would be, the last opportunity the archers would get to fire in large number before the melee fighters used the opening they would make to close in on the alchemist. It was an inevitability that the grim skeleton was, by this point, well prepared for. Magic hummed through the very marrow of his bones, agitated and angry like a disturbed hive of bees rushing to the defense of their queen. His soul squirmed in his hollow rib cage, what ever fear he had up to that point dying soundlessly to be replaced by something unfamiliar and dark. It crept up on him slowly at first and then wrapped around him like a shroud, a sense of strength welling up inside of him that he had never known before. He barely even moved when the arrows shrieked within mere feet of him. Why ever would Gaster need to dodge them? His magic swirled around him almost violently, manifesting in the form of a domed barrier of interwoven bone that shielded him from the biting projectiles. This time he hardly even cared when the arrows splintered against his magical construct, the brief waves of force passing through his awareness as though they were nothing more than a minor nuisance.

The humans rushed towards Gaster while the barrier was up and they were nearly upon him by the time he had bothered taking it down. One of the warriors drew ahead of the rest, reaching the skeleton just as the dome of interwoven bone fizzled and faded from existence. But the human was mistaken to see opportunity in that moment. Even as they struck at the alchemist with the broadsword they wielded, the skeleton's eye sockets snapped open again, a blazing dark purple light trailing away from their shadowed depths like twin flames. That dark feeling... oh how it gripped him, how it weighed down his soul like nothing he had ever felt before. It almost hurt... But at the same time, Gaster found that the world around him seemed to have grown a step slower. It had become predictable. There were patterns here that he had never seen before. And they fell into a rhythm both easy to read and easy to react to. Everything had simply clicked into place, and he could easily discern what was happening around him, what would happen next, what would occur three seconds from now. It whispered to him in every breath his attackers drew in, every shifting ripple of movement that passed through their armored forms and in every distracted flicker that passed through their eyes.

Gaster's senses felt more alive than they had ever been before. And when the tip of the human's sword neared him, he deftly sidestepped what he now recognized as a clumsy strike. The alchemist could feel his magic, pulsing and dancing within his slender form far more acutely than he ever had before. The persistent flow of energy from his soul felt steady and strong, flooding through his bones in a way that almost reminded him of a healthy heartbeat. He barely even needed to think of what he wanted anymore and his magic would rush to obey, a far more perfect extension of his will than he had ever known it to be before. It surged and sprang into his hands almost eagerly, forming into a makeshift weapon fit enough for the skeleton's needs. The construct was nothing truly complicated or interesting, it was just a simple bone with a tapered end like that of a sword. For how unassuming the bone blade was however, Gaster had seen to it that the weapon was easily just as durable as steel by overflowing it with a truly excessive amount of magic.

Unexpectedly enough, the alchemist's scant features smoothed into a dark blankness that gave many of the human warriors pause. They didn't know what the purple glow trailing away from his skull meant. Of course they didn't. Humans never bothered learning about anything until it was absolutely necessary. But they did know that he should have looked scared or angry. Instead, their target was decidedly distant and almost looked to have lost all interest in them. This unnatural reaction to danger however, was not enough for the humans to halt in their advance. They pressed in towards Gaster, a mob of bodies that set about shifting and writhing about the forest floor while the humans struggled to pin down the unsettlingly spry skeleton. Each warrior surged forward only to fall back again so one of his comrades could fit in a strike of their own. And yet still, he remained just beyond their determined reach. To Gaster it felt less like he was dodging attacks meant to cripple or kill him, and much more like he was simply finding his way through a maze of moving corridors. He twisted and danced around the majority of his attackers, something that often earned him muttered curses or shouts of irritation when every sword strike aimed at him fell short.

Though he seemed to be confident in his abilities, though he seemed to look comfortable in this high stakes game of tag... even the dark feeling that centered him wasn't enough to give him a clear advantage in this battle. He could dodge their attacks readily enough. But despite maintaining the outward appearance of perfect control, he found himself internally cursing his inexperience. If all he could manage to do was avoid death by a hairsbreadth every time a strike came close, he wasn't going to get out of this alive, let alone in one piece. The humans' numbers were far greater than he had initially surmised. And truthfully, they weren't giving him any openings to use his magic again, which placed him at a dire disadvantage. Gaster wasn't exactly the best in a close quarters fight, something the humans seemed to have picked up on rather quickly early on in the attack when they decided to rush in on him as fast as their legs could carry them. Strategy and the use of magic were his greatest strengths in any kind of difficult situation. And irritatingly enough, the humans were working themselves into an erratic frenzy while they struggled against his superior agility. The fast paced nature of this conflict was a problem for the alchemist, if for no other reason that the humans' desperate efforts proved to be rapidly denying him of both his best advantages.

While Gaster was busy evading the swordsmen on the ground, the hidden archers stealthily spread out again and began to scale the mossy trunks of ancient trees at a silent command from their leader. Soundlessly the humans climbed, sticking to the shadows while they made their way up to the larger overhanging limbs that provided clear vantage points of the scattered melee below. The first archer to fall into place crouched silently near the trunk of the tree he had climbed and pulled a single arrow free of his quiver to slide it cautiously into place. With the air of one who had been training in the art of assassination for his entire life, the human soundlessly crept along the length of the branch and began to track the skeleton's weaving path through the warriors below. He remained patient, slowly pulling the bowstring back while he waited for an opportune moment with a grim determination that was all too present in his comrades. Gaster's fighting form was sloppy, full of very obvious holes that any ranged sniper could take easy advantage of. The only real problem was choosing which one of them to exploit.

For all of the effort the archer had put into their training, they were rapidly growing impatient. And when what seemed to be a solid chance to cripple the skeleton presented itself, they didn't hesitate to take it. With less reluctance then the archer should have exercised, he finally let the arrow fly and watched it intently while it traveled through the air. The alchemist was caught between two humans, dancing along a fine line between relative safety and certain death. He twisted around one attack and forced another one wide, spotting the arrow flying towards him barely in time to leap out of its path. Despite everything, Gaster couldn't help a slight twinge of curiosity when considering the humans' clever tactics. If they were so intelligent as to use the forest itself to gain an advantage in this fight, what else could they do when they put their minds to it? Normally it would have been a bad idea to loose an arrow into the midst of the fray. But they were using altitude to avoid hitting any of their comrades.

An unnatural cold took hold of him then, his soul squirming in his chest as he was reminded of just how little room for error he had. There was more than just one archer hiding among the trees. And he highly doubted that they would just stand back and watch from where they were. How many near misses could he force? How many times could he spring out of the way of an arrow without leaping into the path of a falling sword stroke? He knew that the moment he did make a mistake, even something so small as a slight stumble or a momentary slip... Even if the mistake only wasted one instant, it would mean the end of this skirmish, the end of him. A brutish shout from behind Gaster shook him free of these paralyzing thoughts when a towering human slipped free of the crowd and brought a two handed sword to bear against him. The human had obviously thought to catch the skeleton off guard so he could make room for his comrades to fit in a number of their own attacks, but in the end they were only half right. The sheer size of the human and the brashness of his actions surprised him and for a brief moment, he hesitated. It wasn't enough to leave him wide open for attack, but the momentary lapse was enough that Gaster needed to take a sudden shift to the left to avoid the blow.

Time seemed to slow drastically for the skeleton in the moments that followed. And for the first time since the chaos had begun, an opportunity slipped free of the seething melee. Gaster had moved well in advance of the blow ever reaching him and now the human was perfectly positioned for him to retaliate. The brute had yet to notice he had ever moved and his sword was even still angling downwards, leaving the gaps in his armor woefully exposed. There was no hesitation in the way he seized the chance to rid himself of one of his opponents. Something in the dark feeling that encompassed his soul, pressed him on where he might have otherwise hesitated, telling him that now was his best chance at killing the towering human. Gaster hardly even thought about it when he angled his own weapon upward and forced it into a chink in the human's armor along the underside of their arm. They hadn't even time to wonder where he had gone before the alchemist had speared through part of his chest and pierced his throat from below, guaranteeing that the warrior would never see the light of day again. Almost stiffly, Gaster wrenched his weapon free and blocked another coming attack from a human warrior that shrieked in rage at the sight of the other human crumpling to the ground. If the alchemist wasn't too busy with the waves of relief and repulsion that washed over him while the wounded human drowned on his own blood mere feet away from him, he might have sensed some connection between the two. However, what ever reason the boy had to justify his fury, the skeleton saw it only as one less human he would need to defend himself against.

The angry human vanished into the ebb and flow of combatants that surged around Gaster and all too soon, he found himself forgetting the burning hatred in their eyes under the pressure of the battle itself. As much as he hated to admit it... As much as he hoped that the dark feeling in his soul would be enough to get him through this alive, he was rapidly beginning to tire. There were still far too many opponents left to him for the alchemist to find any openings to escape. And with each passing moment his movements became slower, his steps less certain. For all his efforts, he only found the dark feeling dimming against a rising tide of panic welling up within him when he was forced to fling one strike wide and barely managed to duck around another. The alchemist found himself fighting on two fronts now, struggling to stay alive while he internally strived to reason himself into remaining calm... rather than making a mistake that really would cost him his life. Gaster had all but forgotten the archers hiding among the trees, an oversight that would cost him dearly when another one of the well trained humans fell into place.

Silent as a specter, the archer retrieved an arrow from his quiver and slowly slid it into place. Their shadowed eyes flickered to and fro as they tracked the skeleton through the mass of bodies. Patiently, stubbornly the human waited... carefully drawing his bowstring back until he could feel the flexible wood straining against it. They waited for the moment when their target would turn his back to them and then the human fired. The bloodthirsty projectile hissed through the air as it rushed towards Gaster, following the path its master's cruel intentions dictated. By this point, the alchemist had begun to loose the razor's edge that the dark feeling in his soul granted him. And while he could still manage to survive against his opponents on the ground, he could no longer detect the sound of an arrow slicing through the air when it spat free of a bowstring.

The skeleton had only just managed to fend off another vicious strike when the arrow found its mark, giving rise to a sudden sharp and violent pain that sank wordlessly into the center of his spine. For an instant, Gaster's entire body locked up and he found that he couldn't move. His breath caught in a choked gasp of pain and a bright crimson glow flared to life in his eye sockets. One moment was all the humans needed to end their grim dance, one instant where the skeleton was vulnerable. And it was all too certain that they had no intention of wasting the opportunity that presented itself. What came next surprised him far more then it by any rights should have. After all, he had known from the start that his chances of survival had been slim to none. Still, when those burning, hate filled eyes surged free of the crowd and bore down on him... he found himself shocked by the blood lust within them. The young warrior that had reacted so violently to the alchemist cutting down one of his comrades, rushed in towards him. With a wordless yell, the human swept their hand and a half sword across his chest in a vicious downward motion. There was more than enough murderous intent behind their bloodthirsty strike... and all too soon, the sound of splintering ribs filled the air. Gaster found himself watching helplessly, staring in abject horror at the sight of steel flashing in scattered shafts of sunlight as it tore into the soft black cloth of his alchemist coat and carved through solid bone.

A violent shudder passed through the alchemist's soul and the crimson glow in his eye sockets flickered out like dying candles snuffed by a sudden wind. The shock of such murderous force was more then enough to still his breath, dragging away what ever pain he should have felt from the attack along with it. For once, his thoughts were oddly silent, focused on one thing and one thing alone. Those eyes... Those bloodthirsty eyes, so intent on his destruction... So determined to see him turn to dust. Their hate filled depths haunted him in the moments where he found that he no longer had the strength to stand. And all too soon, the forest began tilting away from him. Liquid magic rushed from his shattered bones in the place of blood, flooding free of his damaged form all too readily to soak into his coat and tunic. The world seemed to slow to a crawl one last time for Gaster. And this time, flickering shadows danced through his vision, shifting and warping almost as shapelessly as flames licking over the edges of a plank of wood. 

The excited shouts of the humans around him seemed to grow muted and his momentum became oddly muffled, as though he was drifting through the air rather than falling. The dark feeling that had given him the strength to survive for so long, faded quietly. And all too soon, a creeping chill began to press in on his soul in its place. A strange sort of draining exhaustion seemed to accompany it, dragging at his bones and weighing down his mind with a sleep like haze. Gaster was finished. And for all his efforts, there was no escaping that one damning truth when it drifted into his rapidly clouding thoughts. The attack hadn't been enough to eradicate what was left of his HP after the initial arrow. But even if the humans didn't finish him off while he was helpless, he knew that he would still die anyway. The last of his life force would likely ebb away as marrow and magic alike seeped free of his broken body, traitorously fleeing him through his shattered rib cage. It wasn't the most peaceful of deaths, nor was it the kindest. But as his consciousness began to fade, he couldn't help but admit to himself that there were worse ways to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhangers, yes I know I'm a jerk.  
> But on the bright side, even if it is an AU, this is Gaster we're talking about. No matter how bleak things look now, there's no way he'll die in the first chapter.  
> So there is no need to panic or shout at me in the comments.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have Gaster's lines in italics because I have no idea how I would make the wingdings font work on this site. ^^'  
> Also.  
> Disclaimer: Undertale owned by Toby Fox

**Chapter 2**

Only one creature in The Woodlands of Cree knew what was going to happen next that morning. And it certainly wasn't the humans or even the skeleton they were hunting. Someone much more powerful than the alchemist had entered the forest mere moments before the battle began. And the vileness of the humans' presence wasn't something his keen senses could have missed. It wasn't as if the dark intent that their hateful souls sent rippling through the peaceful lands or the sudden surge of the magic that had risen against them was something easily overlooked. A massive figure far taller than even the largest human man dashed along the shadowed woodland paths and soon burst free of the darkness surrounding the scene of the attack. If one had blinked they would have missed the sight of the creature when he surged across the distance between himself and Gaster, a cloak of purple silk trailing behind him and for a moment almost giving him the appearance of flight.

Hardly a heartbeat passed between when the creature sensed Gaster's magic falter and begin to fade, and when he arrived to catch him before he could hit the ground. Even less time passed between when the figure caught the dying alchemist with one arm, a massive gleaming trident manifesting in his free hand, and when he retaliated. A crippling wave of force washed over every human that had drawn near the skeleton and swept them away in the blink of an eye. Even had the humans been prepared for it, they still wouldn't have been able to catch sight of the blood red trident the creature wielded when it carved through the air and flung their comrades away. Many of the fools gathered around Gaster died immediately from horrific slash wounds that tore into their chests, cleaving through flesh and armor alike with little distinction between the two. Those struck were flung back into the crowd, faint flashes of different colored light flickering through the air when their souls shattered from the shock and strain of the wounds that claimed their lives.

Some would have argued that the unlucky souls who died so suddenly were the more fortunate of their number, for at least they had never seen the massive creature responsible for their untimely ends. Their attacker was of an ancient race, one for which there had been no true name since times when their kind were many and humans were few. A pair of smoothly arcing horns trailed free of his long ebony locks, a brilliant white that matched the soft fur that coated his entire being. His horns tapered off toward the back of his skull, trailing past a pair of floppy white ears that slipped free of his ebony hair and draped down to his shoulders. He was not easily mistaken for any other creature, for his unique visage that seemed equal parts goat and wolf was a sight of which few could claim ignorance. While outlandish it was impossible to deny that he still bore an almost noble humanoid countenance, though to most humans he would still have been seen as just another monster. Though still young for his kind, it mattered not when his lean figure still towered over even the tallest of human men. Under any other circumstance he might have easily been considered majestic or awe inspiring, at least among the citizens of the monster kingdom if nothing else. Of course given the current situation, the peaceful aura that normally surrounded him was far from present, in its place a melancholy air. The creature was clothed only in a short tunic and a pair of breeches, both of which were crafted of the same soft silken cloth as his cloak and bore glimmering golden embroidery. The sturdiest things he seemed to be wearing were a pair of elongated leather boots, which were hardly fit for anything more than light travel. Despite the fact that their new opponent wore no armor however, many of the ambushers cried out in horror or shock and dismay when their eyes fell upon his unmistakable figure. Even a fool could easily recognize one from such an ancient bloodline, and they were ill prepared for such a dangerous opponent so soon.

For now however, Gaster's savior ignored the shocked and terrified reactions that his sudden violent appearance prompted from the human invaders. For the moment, he was far too concerned about the dying alchemist that lie in his gentle grasp. As cautiously as he could manage, the creature carefully tugged the arrow free of Gaster's spine and gently eased him into his free arm, a dark shadow soon falling over his noble features. The alchemist was fading quickly, his soul shuddering, dimming, as more and more magic seeped from his wounds. It soaked into his clothes and stained his rescuer's garb in patches of red, a faint almost bio luminescent quality to every ounce of spilled magic that escaped his damaged frame. He hadn't even seen when his protector burst free of the trees and rushed to his side. And the sounds around him were far too muffled for him to have detected the change in the humans' shouting. By the time his fall had been halted, Gaster's awareness had already nearly completely left him and he found that he could barely even feel the touch of the one responsible.

The haze that clouded his vision made it impossible for him to see the other monster's face, by this point he couldn't really make out anything more than shadowed shapes anymore. If he had any strength left to his name, he might have felt some measure of comfort in the soft silken cloth and fur that cushioned his battered form. However, even those sensations proved dim and distant, lingering just beyond his reach. The alchemist's savior slowly straightened back up with the skeleton safely resting in his grasp, some dark nature that seemed to mix sorrow, guilt, and anger into one cast upon his noble features. The creature hefted his massive trident and spoke softly, a hollow note to his words that betrayed a deep reluctance to kill. And yet, something far darker lingered just beneath it, a certain unmistakable anger that even the hollowness couldn't completely devour. "I shall finish this quickly, I promise. Stay strong just a short while longer, my friend."

Those words however, fell just short of Gaster's ebbing consciousness, lost somewhere in the thickening haze that threatened to overwhelm him entirely. He was vaguely aware of the fact that someone was trying to save him. But by this point, it didn't seem to matter much anymore. The monster carrying him tensed abruptly then, his breath catching in his throat for just a heartbeat before he surged onward with a terrifying primal scream of fury. For a moment he allowed his outrage over what cruel misfortune had befallen his friend to consume his otherwise peaceful nature. For the moment he would fight, he would kill to protect what little life remained in Gaster's shattered frame. Silken cloak trailing behind him, the creature whisked through the ranks of human warriors and left a path of utter destruction in his wake. What foolish souls rose to face him were cut down as easily as children. And even those who fled soon met a similar fate beneath the shuddering intent and impossible strength of the monster that hunted them.

Unfortunately, even that furious roar barely managed to echo dimly at the very edges of the alchemist's awareness... And slowly, he began to drift away while chaos raged around him. He barely held onto consciousness with the struggle of each passing second, only vaguely aware of the movement around him. Any more than that, he couldn't quite discern. The distant sounds that vibrated through his skull could have been the dying screams of humans and the splintering of armor just as easily as they could have been the howling of the wind, warped and distorted by his fading consciousness. He was oblivious to the frantic rush of the other monster as he hurried to finish off the humans, all too aware of his deteriorating condition. Gaster wouldn't have noticed when arrows began to howl through the air towards the both of them. He might not have even cared if one of the projectiles had struck him, so distant the world around him seemed.

The archers fired upon the scene in utter panic, paying no heed to where their attacks would land should they miss their intended targets in their haste to halt their new foe's terrifying advance. But what ever the humans hoped to achieve by loosing their arrows upon the creature, was clearly nothing more then a fools dream. The screaming projectiles proved only a minor inconvenience to their enemy thanks to the fragile nature of the dying skeleton he was trying to protect. They forced him to brake step, to brace the trident he wielded against his back. And within the next instant, he twirled in a vicious motion that swept up the arrows like loose strands of dried grass in a howling wind. The archers hardly had time to notice that their melee support had been crushed by the time the creature turned his furious gaze upon them as well. Many of them panicked and tried to flee under the weight of his piercing green eyes, turning and flitting through the interwoven branches of the canopy. Others continued firing in the hopes of at least slowing down their enemy's murderous rush, their morale and their practiced unity completely shattering. None however, lived to see open ground again. Their attacker sprang onto the nearest overhanging branch and impaled one human through the chest, only to turn his gaze upon another mere moments later. For all of their desperate efforts, the creature darted through the dense canopy unimpeded and picked them off one by one. When ever an arrow was loosed towards him, he simply wove almost gracefully around it with the air of a wraith drifting across open marshland, never once missing a foothold.

True to his word, the battle was over relatively quickly. Not so much as a single soldier escaped his wrath, there would be no one to alert any other nearby units of what had transpired... Providing there had even been any more humans in the area to begin with. The skeleton's protector however, felt no sense of victory or pride in the wake of this accomplishment. Instead a hollow ache filled his soul with a phantom pain, the sight of what he had done leaving a wound that none could see. Swiftly, quietly, he returned to the forest floor and began to retreat from the scene of the slaughter, intent on setting as much distance between himself and the corpses of the fallen as possible. It was not long after that when Gaster's soul gave another weak shudder and continued to dim, shallow cracks quickly beginning to spider web over its crystalline surface. The damage should have caused him pain. But by this point, any pain he should have felt was completely consumed by the overwhelming sense of exhaustion that dragged at him. He could no longer hear what was happening around him and he found that he didn't really care in the end. But one flickering thought still pulled at his faltering awareness with the faintest twinge of regret. The weakest of smiles twitched at his scant features and he mused to himself quietly, somehow finding the strength to manage a small rasping whisper that was barely anything more than a sigh. _'... forgive me.... it seems.... we shall not.... be sharing tea.... today...'_

The monster carrying him started at the weak and wavering sound, halting in his tracks despite the fact that he couldn't understand the strange chiming tones of the skeleton's native tongue. The mere faltering faintness of it sent a shuddering chill through his veins and all too readily, he abandoned his weapon. The trident tumbled from his grip and fizzled out of existence as it fell through the air, vanishing into nothingness as though it had never been. Doubt gripped the creature's soul with a vice like hold that threatened to steal his breath away, his chest tightening at the grim thought that he may have been too late. Hesitation marked his every movement, doubt twisting at his noble features even as he shakily hovered his free paw over the alchemist's shattered chest. He found his magic sluggish and reluctant to obey his commands, the way his heart raced and his own soul fluttered in his chest interfering with his focus. At first nothing came to him. But still the creature struggled, until at last a faint shimmer of green built up around his paw and healing energy began to flow over the worst of Gaster's wounds with an almost painful slowness.

His healing magic was far weaker than he would have liked to admit and the doubt that clawed through his soul only served to weaken it further. However, he wasn't going to simply stand by and wait for the alchemist to finish falling... To just do nothing as his battered body collapsed into dust and slipped through his fingers like sand. For all he was worth, he prayed that Gaster would survive. And he poured all that he could into trying to save him. He would not simply allow his friend to slip away. And if he didn't have the power needed to drag him back from the darkness, he thought with a grieving air... At the very least his efforts might serve to ease the skeleton's passing. For all of his his struggles, Gaster was far too weak to feel familiar magic at work around him. In truth, he was far too weak to even sense the energy that twisted through his shattered rib cage. The world was fast fading around him, disappearing into darkness while he drifted into a blanket of still silence that felt both suffocating and inviting at the same time. Nothingness called to him and he had nearly resigned himself to it. Only to find it quite suddenly and unexpectedly torn apart when the creature's magic forced life back into his faltering body and soul.

 _ **Pain...**_ White hot and merciless... more violent than anything he had ever known before, ripped him away from the sheltering darkness that offered him release. It pressed in on his chest with a weight like liquid iron, scalding, burning, devouring his other senses and sending another unsteady tremor through his weakened soul. Gaster wanted to scream. He wanted to cry out to the heavens and force every ounce of the all consuming agony free of his chest in what ever unearthly, earsplitting shriek he could manage. But by this point, he was far too weak to so much as whimper under the weight of the devouring pain and his ever growing exhaustion. His vision shifted and swam as it returned to him, fading in and out unsteadily as though his enchanted sight simply refused to bring the world around him into proper focus.

If his mind was less garbled by weariness and pain, Gaster might have had the wisdom to avoid breathing at all since it wasn't exactly necessary for a skeleton. However, after the experience of nearly turning to dust, he didn't exactly have much sense left to his scattered thoughts. Against all logic, he drew in a ragged breath, which only served to force him into a sudden violent fit of coughing that drained away ever more of his sparse strength. The agonizing convulsions seemed to last an eternity to him and by the time they finally ended, a thin trickle of liquid magic was left trailing down his jaw. When the jostling waves of motion passed through the skeleton's battered form, the creature holding him felt his own soul twinge and shudder under a rising tide of dread. And when they stopped, the healing magic that wove around Gaster faltered briefly before it failed entirely, the uncertainty in the ancient being's own heart and soul silencing the power he had forced to manifest. An involuntary snarl slowly curled across the creature's noble features, twisting them in a pained manner as a sense of hopelessness closed in on him from all sides and threatened to overwhelm him. He struggled and fought to hold on to himself, to regain some faltering measure of composure despite the oppressive air that seemed to have fallen over the surrounding woodlands. It took all of his strength just to hold his voice steady when at last he managed to force himself to speak. It took all of his restraint just to resist the compulsion to shout at his friend. "You are not going to die today, I will not allow it... Do you hear me? I forbid you to die!"

Though Gaster couldn't seem to force his magical sight to work quite properly, he could hear again just fine. The other monster's voice reverberated through his skull with an unnatural loudness after the silence that had so completely encompassed him before, familiar and yet strange. Gaster knew that voice... though it had grown dark and desperate, a far cry from the tranquil note he was used to hearing in its every word. More than anything however, he found himself compelled to listen to what the voice demanded. There was a certain commanding finality to its words that drew his attention and granted him some faint measure of clarity. He twitched weakly, a movement so small as to be imperceptible at first. Finally his vision focused just enough for him to see Asgore's shadowed form towering above him, though still the other monster's face eluded him. He couldn't see the tears of grief that threatened to overwhelm his king, he couldn't see the pain that twisted at his noble features. Had Gaster not been so weak he might have managed to feel bewildered or grateful. Instead however, he only felt a faint note of disbelief. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He couldn't trust that his eye sockets were showing him the truth. He struggled to move, barely managing to lift a trembling hand from where it was resting beside him. A weak almost shuddering whisper rattled its way free of him, his half closed eye sockets and unfocused gaze given a frighteningly distant appearance without the glow that normally burned in their shadowed depths. _'... your majesty....'_

Asgore's soul shuddered under the weight of his joy and relief when Gaster began moving intentionally for the first time since he pulled his wounded friend into his arms. A breath that he hadn't even realized he was holding, escaped him in a shaking drawn out sigh and the king closed his eyes for a brief moment to banish the tears that had been building inside of them. The pained snarl that twisted at his noble features eased and melted away relatively quickly, over time his hair shifting from its deep ebony color to an almost golden hue of yellow. Asgore found that he had to steady himself before he could begin to take the skeleton's trembling hand in his own massive paw and even then he still sank to his knees where he stood, his shoulders sagging and his posture growing lax. For a moment he thought Gaster would succumb to his wounds, for a moment he thought that he had already lost him.

Even the promise of hope was not enough to still the king's fears however. His friend may have still been with him for now, but Gaster was oh so very weak. The skeleton's condition was painfully precarious and the thought of the magic that was still seeping from his broken bones didn't exactly help Asgore silence his worries. Slowly and hesitantly, as though he was afraid his friend would turn to dust the moment he made the smallest mistake, he let go of Gaster's hand and shifted into a sitting position as carefully as he could manage. He was too absorbed by the task of trying to spare the shattered skeleton any further harm to even really notice or care when the damp earth pressed into his clothing, dirt and woodland debris coating his cloak. Gently cradling his wounded friend in his arms, the king cautiously hovered one of his massive paws above Gaster's shattered rib cage once more, fighting against himself for several moments before he could even think to begin healing him again. Asgore's magic didn't want to listen to him when he was so shaken. And every shadow of doubt or whisper of worry only made it more unyielding.

After what felt like an eternity of internal struggles, he finally managed to force his magic to obey him and a faint shimmer of green pulsed to life around his paw. Within a number of strained moments, thin tendrils of healing magic seethed through the air and again began to seep into the worst of the skeleton's wounds. He had never been the best healer to begin with despite the massive amount of power he had at his disposal. In truth, Asgore's kind heart and gentle nature made him too hesitant for him to be effective. When ever he tried healing someone, his own doubts and fears always weakened the magic he was weaving. The simple thought of the pain he was trying to ease always stood in his way. As it was, it had been a small miracle that he had managed to push aside his doubts long enough to pull Gaster back from the very edges of life and death. And, he suspected that the healing magic he had been using was much less to thank for it than the sudden transfusion of incredibly potent magical energy was. But for all his doubts regarding how much of his healing magic was actually healing his friend instead of just transferring energy to him, Asgore still found worse thoughts twisting at his heart and soul. He had arrived just barely in time to keep the humans from striking the final blow that would have shattered Gaster's soul. The thought of what might have happened had he left the castle even a moment later plagued him like a hovering cloud of darkness, reminding him that he nearly failed his friend and indeed still might. It ate away at him, the mere thought of what would have happened had he ignored the creeping sense of unease that had taken hold of him so suddenly without reason or cause.

For all he was worth however, Asgore managed to hold on to the healing magic despite the dark thoughts that clouded his heart and mind. A desperate hope burned in the center of his soul, persistently reminding him that he could worry about such grimness after Gaster was well again. And when ever the inevitable question of whether or not he would even be able to recover came to mind, he stubbornly pushed it away. A painfully long silence closed in around them in which neither the king nor his injured friend dared to speak, for even the woodlands had grown silent and still in the wake of the chaos that so abruptly erupted within their shadowed recesses. The skeleton grew steadily stronger over time, Asgore's efforts restoring some of the magic he had lost and perhaps slowing the startling rate at which he was loosing more. He could feel as Gaster's weakened soul drew in the energy and it reassured him to some degree when he sensed his faltering life force slowly growing stronger.

The king used the silence that stood between them to further steady himself and regain some sense of peace after all that transpired. And when Asgore at last spoke, his voice had returned to the soft gentleness that his friend had come to know over the past century. "Yes... yes... just stay with me. Keep fighting my friend, you must keep fighting." Slowly over time as Asgore poured more and more magic into the alchemist's broken body, a flickering spark began to return to his eye sockets. The faltering glow started off at a dull, almost dusty shade of red that the king had seen many times before. Mostly, he remembered it from when ever Gaster tripped over something or rammed his arm unexpectedly into something else the half a dozen times Toriel startled him without meaning to. Asgore should have felt reassured when the glow in his eye sockets grew steady and began to brighten. However, when it took a turn towards deep crimson... he instead felt a painful twinge within his own soul.

He would have been a fool if he thought for even a moment that his healing magic was doing very much to ease his friend's pain... he had known that he would be suffering greatly from his injuries. But the way that crimson glow grew and grew until it drifted free of his eye sockets like twin flames. The way it seethed through the air almost condemningly, as if to blame Asgore for all that had befallen Gaster in the time it had taken him to intervene... It was enough that the king again felt his chest tightening, a dull ache encompassing his soul. As desperately as he wished he could do something to ease the pain his friend was being forced to endure, he could barely manage to take the edge off while he struggled to stabilize his condition.

It was around this time that his magic finally managed to bleed off the last of the shock Gaster had been left in from the devastating strike that shattered his rib cage. He was far from healed, but at the very least he was stable enough now that the shadowed shapes around him at last began coming into focus. The first thing he saw sent a shiver of dismay through his weakened soul and made him feel ill. The concerned, almost distant way his friend was looking at him hardly inspired positive thoughts. And against his better judgment; he struggled to lift his skull enough that he could look at what was left of his rib cage, only to have Asgore move his paw in the way. Gaster hesitated for a moment and then turned his exhausted gaze back to the king in a questioning manner, though it wasn't as if he really needed to ask why his friend had decided to conceal the extent of the damage from him. Even in his dazed state, he had pointedly avoided looking at his own HP, dreading what he would have seen more than almost anything else.

An uncomfortable weight tugged at Asgore's chest as though his heart had turned to lead. And he found that for all he was worth, he almost couldn't bare to meet the alchemist's exhausted gaze. The king found himself forced to take another few moments to steady himself again and closed his eyes briefly as he drew in a heavy breath. Despite how shaken the entire incident had left him, Asgore managed to hold his voice steady for Gaster's sake. However, there was little he could do to banish the grimness that worked its way into his every word. "Trust me when I say that you do not wish to see this."

Rather reluctantly, the alchemist began to relax back into the larger monster's grasp again, by far too drained to bother arguing against Asgore's reasoning. If he hadn't been so tired he might have thought of something to say to his friend. He might have mentioned that as a doctor, he would know best to how treat his own injuries. But his thoughts, were still too scattered by pain and muddled down by the loss of so much magic for him to even consider trying to communicate. Gaster found that every moment he remained conscious was a struggle in its own right. The exhausting pain that weighed down his thoughts and the weakness that tugged at his soul begged and pleaded for him to rest. The doctor in him however, reminded him that he couldn't risk drifting off just yet... not after the extensive damage he had taken. He needed to stay awake even if it was difficult. It wasn't as though his HP would drain any further unless he suffered any more damage. But he could still feel magic seeping from his broken bones, even if the flow of it had slowed to an extent. If he surrendered, if he gave in, it was very possible that his shattered form wouldn't be able to sustain itself. And the last thing he would have wanted was for Asgore to look on helplessly as he crumbled into dust right in his friend's arms.

The mere thought of it sickened Gaster and filled him with an unspeakable bitterness over how unmistakably fragile his kind were compared to other monster species. There were no cushioning layers of muscle to protect a skeleton's bones from damage, no natural defense provided them. It may have been true that there was less room for error with creatures of flesh and sinew when one considered that a dagger between the ribs could rip into something important. But the most that even the strongest armor could do for a skeleton was prevent their bones from being directly cut or stabbed into. It took extensive layers of padding to dull the concussive force of any decent attack enough to help their kind, and often times that only served to slow them down. Turtle monsters had their shells and dragons had so much defense it was impossible to point out any one aspect that stood out greater than the others. For a skeleton, there was no second defense against something vital simply shattering under the right circumstances.

This train of thought eventually brought Gaster back to the incident itself. And before long, he began to turn over the attack in his mind while he struggled to force his muddled thoughts into a cohesive whole. His memories of the whole thing were scattered, fragmented and difficult to put in any form of order. He should have found picking apart the events of that morning and the possible reasons behind them relatively easy. Instead, it was as if someone had set fire to his notes on magical conversion and then asked him to recount them word for word on the spot without rephrasing anything.

He never should have been injured this severely, of that he was certain enough... He never should have hesitated in the beginning. Had he turned and fled the moment the first arrow missed him, he would have been fine by the end of the day. The moment Gaster had seen that grim projectile flash past his face, he should have run. If he had, then he never would have had to face the humans alone. He should have gone to rally the militia to deal with the human incursion, to force them out of the forest before they could do any real damage. And suddenly, everything snapped into place. One clear, horrifying thought roared to life, consuming all else with a shuddering jolt almost as violent as a bolt of lightning. The humans had been organized, and not in the cobbled together patchwork way that deviants or bandits were. They were practiced, honed, experienced. They had been moving in accordance to formation and they had been using real tactics. The number that attacked him were well equipped and ready for a full scale conflict. It didn't line up, the group that attacked him had been too few, there had to have been more of them.

It was still in the hours of the early morning and most of those who dwelled within the quiet town of Mistfall were still asleep. If the remaining humans managed to surprise the town guards the way they surprised him, there would be nothing to stop them from slaughtering everyone else in the resulting panic that would follow. The truth lashed at Gaster's soul like a serrated whip and a completely different pain took hold of him, one that washed away any concern he should have had for his wounds. With a sudden start and a gasp, the alchemist struggled to sit upright, his eye sockets widening in horror while a look of complete panic twisted at his skeletal features. The moment Gaster tried to force himself into motion, Asgore felt his chest tighten again rather suddenly and violently, horror sinking talon like claws into his soul. It hurt, more then anything he had ever known, when he found himself struggling to keep his friend still while trying to avoid causing him any more harm than he had already endured.

He was only trying to help of course, but the alchemist would have none of it. He struggled and fought against Asgore's massive arms desperately, the surging panic fluttering in his soul granting him the strength to move when he thought he had nothing left. The pain that tore at his chest and spine seemed completely irrelevant and he no longer cared about the note of weakness that made moving at all difficult. His every movement was strained and trembling, his bones rattling unsettlingly as he struggled and writhed against his friend's grasp. Gaster begged and pleaded with the magic he had left to him, desperately trying to force his spare set of hands into existence so he could at least tell the king what was wrong. But his magic wouldn't listen to him no matter how much he wanted it to. He was too scattered, too weak, too panicked. He would have screamed if he could have found a way around the pain and horror that tightened what was left of his chest and stole his voice from him. **_He needed to warn Mistfall before it was too late, oh why wouldn't his magic just do what he wanted, what he needed it to?_** For all of his efforts, he only felt his strength waning further even as he caught his friend's massive paw in a vice like grip that trembled and shook with his desperate attempts to free himself.

For all Gaster's struggles, Asgore only redoubled his efforts to hold him still, to keep him from damaging himself further and bleeding off what little HP he had left. The trembling in his friend's grasp sent cold stabbing chills through his soul and gods that be, he didn't know by what miracle it was that he managed to hold on to the healing magic he was maintaining. Dread clutched at the king and sent an unnatural chill like ice water through his veins. The thought of what Gaster's frantic scrabbling must have been doing to his remaining HP nearly forced all the air from his lungs. Another pained snarl twisted at Asgore's noble features, his golden hair fading into a familiar dark shade of ebony. The skeleton's panicked struggles were undoubtedly putting a strain on his wounds and yet there was nothing more that he could do to stop him. Before long he found himself clenching his jaw and gritting his fangs together, struggling to remain calm while every passing moment that Gaster continued to fight him weighed down on his soul. If Asgore had been scared to look at his friend's HP before, he was utterly terrified of what he would find if he were to check now. He didn't dare to so much as glance at Gaster's stats, he didn't have to for him to know that his friend wouldn't last if he kept fighting him. At last when he found that he could bear it no longer he shouted at the alchemist, barely keeping a panicked creak out of his voice when a familiar sense of hopelessness threatened to press in on him from all sides once again. **"No! You must be still! You are going to kill yourself!"**

What Asgore said was true and Gaster knew it, but he still found that he couldn't listen this time. He couldn't force himself to obey his king's wishes no matter how desperate they were. It wasn't until he had wasted nearly all of his remaining strength that the panic fluttering in his soul began to dim and he finally collapsed back into his friend's grasp, pain and weariness twisting across his skeletal features. Shadows licked along the edges of Gaster's vision and his breaths came in short, shallow gasps... both ragged and rasping, a familiar haze creeping up into his thoughts. For all of his desperate struggles, Gaster only managed to scare the life out of Asgore. And still he couldn't afford to give up, still he couldn't surrender. It took an almost painful amount of effort for him to turn an exhausted, pleading gaze to his friend. And after a few moments, he closed his eye sockets.

What he was about to do was nothing short of completely insane, something he knew full well. What he was thinking of doing might have even been suicidal, but at present there were no other options left to him. He knew that his efforts would only cause his friend further distress and he hated himself when he thought of what he would be putting Asgore through. But Gaster still only hesitated for a moment at first and in the next heartbeat he was pouring every ounce of will he had into summoning his magic. It hurt, oh gods that be it burned! It stabbed and tore at his senses, sending rippling waves of agony through his battered body that only seemed to worsen with every passing second. Seething trails of crimson light whispered from underneath his closed eye sockets and were joined by thin streams of magical residue... tears of pain, that ran across either side of his skull. Asgore grew still as stone when he felt Gaster's life force beginning to ebb away again at a terrifying rate, his heart and soul lurching at the realization that he was trying to use magic in his broken state.

For a moment the king froze and shock glazed over his noble features. He found himself petrified by the dread that had settled into his soul while the thought of Gaster falling laced into him like white hot iron. He wanted to cry out, to scream, to beg and plead with what ever god or deity would listen. He just wanted to make Gaster stop, to give him the time he needed to keep him stable, just to buy him the time he needed to keep his friend from crumbling to dust in his arms. A pulsating almost numbing pain spread out from Asgore's soul and for all his efforts, he found that he could no longer hold on to what was left of his slipping composure when the skeleton began to tremble weakly in his grasp. He wasn't ready to say farewell to his friend, he wasn't ready to see the day when they could no longer share in one another's company. It almost felt as though something broke inside of him. Something snapped and the faint green shimmer around the king's paw abruptly erupted into a much steadier glow that encompassed both he and the skeleton entirely.

Asgore's magic seethed through the air and tainted it with a sense of pure desperation, the mists around them parting almost as though frightened of the powerful emotions that echoed through the boss monster's magic. When the beginnings of tears again started to sting his eyes and blur his vision, Asgore found that he no longer cared enough to hide them, his one and only concern being the magical energy that he was pouring into his friend. He was so lost within the moment, so desperate to keep Gaster alive, that he nearly missed it at first when the flickering and fading forms of his friend's spare set of hands phased into view right in front of him.

The constructs hung in the air almost as limply as marionettes without a puppeteer, the blue glow that made them waxing and waning with the alchemist's unsteady focus. They shifted and rippled through the air much like cobwebs caught in a steady draft, an unfamiliar, almost mocking frailty to their transparent forms. Gaster found that for all he was worth, he could barely keep his spare set of hands manifested. The surging agony that assaulted him ensured that he could barely even form a coherent thought. Each growing pulse of pain shot through him with a shuddering impact that made it feel as though he were being chipped apart piece by minuscule piece. It filled his bones, his skull, with a violent buzzing that almost made him feel insubstantial. Almost as though, he was already breaking apart into dust right where he was. He had stopped breathing a while ago and it was very possible that if he could have afforded the distraction, he might have felt grateful that he didn't need to.

It felt like an eternity to Gaster, those brief few seconds after the constructs had formed, where he was fighting against the pain that tore at him. It was nothing short of unbearable. It made his soul shudder and dim and it made what was left of his chest tighten agonizingly. Even with Asgore's assistance, even with it being such a simple spell; the pain alone was enough that it nearly convinced him that his soul had already begun to fragment. With one last desperate push, he somehow managed to drag in a ragged breath and spoke in a hoarse whisper. He somehow managed to force the constructs to follow the thin sound of his voice, to flicker between the words he needed to express. He couldn't explain to his king what was wrong, he didn't have the time or the strength to. But if nothing else, he could give him direction. _'..... the town.... I need to.....'_

The flickering and faltering forms of the constructs pulled at Asgore's attention when Gaster began to speak, if nothing else because he wasn't certain that his friend would live long enough to finish what ever it was he wanted to say in the first place... What ever it was that he was willing to die to tell him. The rasping sigh in the alchemist's words... The way the constructs almost seemed to shift in and out of focus every now and then... The way his friend's life force continued to dim... The way Gaster's magic continued to flood out of him faster and faster with each passing moment that he continued to force it into submission... It only made that horrible feeling in the king's heart and soul grow worse, as if there was a wound caught somewhere between the two that was rapidly widening. Despite the tears blurring Asgore's vision, he still made out the feeble message, he still found himself standing as quickly as he dared. He moved cautiously to avoid causing Gaster any more harm than he had already endured and completely ignored the thought of what else might have been waiting for them out in the shadowed woodlands. He didn't care that he wasn't carrying a weapon, he had to keep maintaining the healing magic he was working with. If he let go now, if he let it fade, he didn't think he could force it into existence again.

Under these dire circumstances, regaining some measure of composure, some measure of control over himself must have been one of the greatest struggles Asgore had ever endured in his life. He knew that his friend wouldn't survive his wounds if he kept trying to force himself. He had to reassure him. He had to do something, anything that would convince Gaster to stop fighting him. The king couldn't force the gentleness or kindness back into his words anymore, but by some miracle he still managed to hold his voice steady when he finally found it again. "We will go together, save your strength." It was all too willingly that Gaster cut off the flow of magic to his constructs and relinquished his hold of it at the king's words. Welcome relief flooded through him the moment Asgore's magic rushed into what felt like an empty void where his own should have been. And a weak rasping sigh escaped the skeleton, a small breath that shook and trembled nearly as much as the rest of him did. He couldn't believe he had just **_done that!_** That he had just **_thrown_** himself into that **_hell_** without ever knowing whether or not he would come out **_alive!_ **

Using magic was normally as simple and easy for Gaster as **_breathing!_** And even more **_necessary!_** He hardly even had to think of it most of the time. He still had to consciously try like with any kind of controlled magic, but it was still second nature to him. It was supposed to be **_painless!_** The tingling feeling that it always sent running through his bones was supposed to actually be incredibly **_pleasant!_** In his half dead state however, it had felt  as though he was gouging out shards of his very soul to fuel the constructs instead. Another shuddering breath escaped Gaster at the memory of the pain, the thin trails of crimson seeping out of his closed eye sockets growing the slightest bit. If he hadn't been so weak he might have been surprised or ashamed of himself for crying like a child after being struck. But at present, he wasn't even aware of the magical residue that ran across his skull and stained Asgore's clothes with small patches of discoloration. If the king even noticed the tears that trailed free of his friend's eye sockets, he certainly didn't feel like commenting on them. After all, even if he had been that kind of creature, how could he when he was just barely starting to stem the flow of his own?

A heavy silence yawned between them, one in which neither of the two friends said anything or even tried to reassure the other. Gaster was perhaps a tad too grateful for it, the quiet that pressed in on them from all sides. It made it easier to focus on the pain that shot through him every time Asgore's boots shifted across the uneven ground. It made staying awake easy. And after the all consuming agony of using magic when he had nothing to give, the shattered bones seemed minor. It might have been his friend's healing magic that made the pain seem so meaningless, but he wasn't certain he cared which was responsible anymore. For the moment, he was just glad that it had dimmed. And he found that despite the white hot pinpricks that shot through his ribs and spine, he was actually happy to be alive.

The king's tears slowly dried and faded, and after a time he found that the pain he felt at the thought of loosing Gaster had begun to ebb as he sensed his friend's life force steadily growing stronger. If it weren't for the importance of maintaining the healing magic he held around the alchemist, he might have stopped to rest. He might have found someplace sheltered to pause for a moment and gather himself. At present however, he couldn't afford to take a moment to calm himself or focus completely on the healing magic he was using. The silence of the woodlands around them weighed down on Asgore a great deal. And though it no longer felt as if he were breaking to pieces, a dull ache remained nestled in the center of his chest. He had a horrible feeling that he knew the reason behind the stark silence that stalked them through the mists like a harbinger of death. And after stumbling upon a new trail leading towards Mistfall, he did not doubt that he was right.

Their progress was slow, unbearably so when ever Asgore wandered off the hidden path leading to Mistfall and found a new trail leading towards the town. There were so many of them, cutting through the forest and making their way towards the sleeping town of skeletons that called the woodland hollow their home. No matter how near they drew to Mistfall, not a single sound pierced the air save the soft swish of the king's cloak trailing through the trampled undergrowth and the gentle sound of his boots pressing against moist earth. The signs were all there, always ahead of Asgore, almost mockingly warning him of what lie ahead. He didn't want Gaster to see what had become of Mistfall. He didn't want to see for himself what he knew had happened to the cheerful community of skeletons that had claimed a special place in his heart. The king wanted nothing more than to turn and flee, to keep them fresh in his mind as he last remembered them, rather than witnessing the aftermath of a massacre and having only dust and bittersweet memories to recall.

Unfortunately... it didn't matter what Asgore wanted or didn't want to do, what he didn't want the alchemist or himself to see. It didn't matter that he would have spared his friend the pain of seeing Mistfall destroyed, for Gaster was hell-bent on returning home. He wouldn't rest until he saw what had become of Mistfall, the settlement that was the center of his entire world. And if he didn't take him there, Asgore thought bitterly... his friend would likely turn to dust trying to reach it. The damning silence persisted even after they reached the steep hill leading into the misty woodland hollow where the town was built, the ground around it trampled and upturned. There was no shouting, no call to arms, none of the clashing echoes of battle that should have been filling the air while the town guards and watchmen tried to organize themselves and warn the others. A dark shadow seemed to fall across the king's noble features when he began the climb, his boots sinking ever so slightly into the disturbed earth. A certain sorrowful grimness clung to Asgore now, one that ill suited his kindhearted nature.

Gaster had never once thought anything of the dead silence that pervaded the air, at least not until after his friend had begun the climb. Unable to believe they were so close to Mistfall already, he slowly opened his eye sockets and a sudden cold gripped him the moment he noticed the resigned air that clung to Asgore. Frigid ice water seemed to flood through the very marrow of his bones, his soul twisting itself into an uncomfortable knot that only grew tighter the nearer they drew to the crest of the hill. What lay before them when the ground fell away into the open hollow beneath the hill, was something that Gaster never imagined possible... A truly horrific sight straight out of any monster's worst nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To any of you who are worried about or hoping for this to end in a ship, sorry that's not going to happen. ^^'  
> As for the reason behind those humans' souls shattering so soon after they died... in this AU I'm being a bit picky over the rules behind a soul surviving after the body dies.  
> It's going to be a fair bit rarer than just any human soul lasting centuries after their body has been eradicated.  
> A weak soul or one exposed to a high degree of unexpected shock has a significant chance of shattering shortly after death instead of just any human soul surviving without a body.  
> This will probably be explained by Gaster at some point in the fan novel, but seeing as it'll likely be a long way's off, I might as well get it out of the way now.  
> Also, can't believe I never thought to comment on this before....  
> How can skeletons cough or choke?  
> It's a reflex reaction to pain centered around their ribs/sternum and or a foreign contaminant entering the magical field that holds them together drifting too near to their souls.  
> It can be suppressed if the skeleton in question is aware enough at the time to predict the occurrence, but it takes about the same kind of self control as just focusing on your nose when you're about to sneeze and forcing it to stop before the pressure has a chance to build.  
> They don't necessarily need to breathe and the act of coughing or choking has nothing to do with the air passing through their rib cage or in between their bones.  
> It's nothing more than a reaction to discomfort of one form or another, manifesting in a way kind of like when the nurse at the doctor's office taps your knee and your foot jerks no matter how hard you're trying to keep it still.  
> This explanation probably isn't the best way to go about it, but sometimes oversimplifying is the best course of action...  
> I hope I didn't make it too confusing. ^^'


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have these little warnings set up on DeviantArt for a chapter every once in a while so I decided to do the same thing here just so you know what you're getting into every now and then... Though I also tend to use these little content warning messages as an excuse to make jokes about grim stuff sometimes... So...
> 
> Content Warning: Depression! And apathy.... a whole lot of apathy... Also, mild gore in the form of broken bones being readily visible.  
> Disclaimer: Undertale owned by Toby Fox  
> \-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Chapter 3**

Mistfall, what had once been a cheerful town buzzing with magical energy and welcoming smiles, was now completely silent and devoid of all signs of life. Buildings lie half shattered and smouldering across the lazy cobblestone paths that barely hours ago Gaster had crept along himself. Dust obscured the streets alongside the mist, clouding the air with an appearance like dense fog and concealing much of the damage with a hazy ashen hue. Every now and then a thin breeze stirred the haze that clung to the air and whipped up small whirlwinds of particles through the desolate streets, almost as if mocking the life that had once walked its paths. Asgore took in the sight with a melancholy air, the dull ache in his chest only becoming the slightest bit worse. He had been able to prepare for this, even if he had only a short time before he found himself forced to stare down into those desolate streets. So many lives had been lost that day, and there were sure to be more that would follow before long. He had never seen such destruction, such utter devastation at that hands of the humans before. Mankind often skirmished against the mixed and mottled collections of creatures that called the monster kingdom their home, but they had never attacked a settlement so viciously before. The humans had never borne down upon a peaceful town like Mistfall with the intention of eradicating everything that yet drew breath.

What disturbed Asgore the most perhaps, was the fact that they had left no telling signs in their approach. As far as he could tell, they appeared to have done nothing that would have warned the skeletons of their coming. The humans had obviously been marching in number and from the shredded undergrowth and upturned dirt they hadn't been moving slowly either... and yet, from where he stood there were few signs of real resistance. There had been no sounds in the woodlands that would have suggested their presence either.. No clattering roar of armored warriors on the march, not even the rustling of so many bodies making their way through the undergrowth. There had been nothing to suggest that anything was wrong, save the unnatural silence that pervaded the air. Somehow, the humans had crept into the very heart of these lands and smothered the life from the sleeping town without ever alerting anyone of their presence. It was wrong, it was unnatural how something like this could have occurred... How they could have torn apart the residents of Mistfall and then vanished into the mists so shortly thereafter... Leaving Gaster... the sole survivor of the massacre. The healing magic that hovered in the air around Asgore dimmed and then slowly faded entirely, his efforts to tend to his friend coming to an abrupt end.

It wasn't as if the alchemist would have even noticed the magic falter and fade however, for he was already staring down at the desolate remains of the place he had once called home. His eye sockets gaped at the sight of it, the lights in their shadowed depths trembling as they flickered and shifted to a piercing shade of blue. His soul twisted, writhing in what was left of his chest with a bitterness and grief more agonizing than the wounds he bore. It was just too much... And with a startling abruptness, a crack, jagged and deep, sprang to life across Gaster's soul to join the much shallower strains that already marred its surface. He lurched suddenly at the shuddering, stabbing pain it sent echoing through the very marrow of his bones and then went limp in Asgore's grasp. His gaze grew unfocused and distant again, the tears that trailed from his eye sockets thinning into the same blue that had overtaken their glowing depths. It was not long after that when even the blue glow in his eye sockets dimmed down and faded away, claimed by a vacant hollowness that overtook his skeletal features. A thin whisper escaped Gaster, empty and quiet, something for which he offered no translation. _'.... gone....'_

A slight shuffling sound from behind them and the soft swish of silk betrayed Toriel's eventual arrival when she finally caught up with Asgore. The queen was by far a less imposing figure than her husband, though she was perhaps around the same height as the king if not a foot or so shorter. But it was likely the fact her horns were little more than tiny stubs located near the crown of her head that made her seem far smaller. Far different from her husband's, they poked out of her soft white fur by only a small bit and angled behind her at a delicate curve that only brought them a few inches off from where they had begun. Obviously, she and the king were of the same species... though Toriel's almost lupine features were fairer by far and more humanoid than Asgore's had ever been. She could have easily been considered beautiful under most other circumstances, though at present she was somewhat disheveled. Her fur was messy and disturbed as though she had rushed after Asgore the moment he had left the castle, and her lilac silk dress was more than somewhat unkempt. She had likely fallen behind at some point when the king had reached the woodlands themselves, and from the state of her she seemed to have stumbled once or twice along the way. Despite the effort of catching up to Asgore and the state of her fur and garb, she was much more concerned by what she saw when she crested the hill. A strangled gasp escaped Toriel as she beheld the desolate remains of Mistfall, a creeping cold clawing through her veins at the horrific scene that lie before them.

She stared, her soft violet eyes widening in horror and dismay at the sight of the dust that so thickly hung in the air. She couldn't stop herself from taking a half step backward, a shudder passing through her from head to toe. Toriel shook her head in disbelief and brought a trembling paw to her snout, the beginnings of tears glistening to life along the undersides of her eyes. It was not long before a thin, shaking whisper escaped the queen, her horrified gaze never once wandering from the remains of those who once dwelt within Mistfall. ".... What.... is this....?" She felt rooted in place by the sight of it, as if the devastated town held some dark sway over Toriel that denied her the power to avert her eyes. It wasn't until Asgore slowly turned towards her and carefully picked his way across the remaining distance between them, that she was finally able to drag her gaze away from the dust that clung to the mist filled air.

There was a certain grim sorrow about the king when he came to a stop in front of her, one that caught in his eyes and danced in their emerald depths. His large silhouette cut off her view of the town for the moment, something that she could have been grateful for. Toriel saw the familiar streaking patterns of dried tears in Asgore's fur when she met his gaze, but not for one moment did she think to comment on them. There was nothing she could have said to comfort him any more then he could have comforted her. Their peaceful world had been invaded by a malevolence both foreign and merciless, and already it had claimed the lives of so many. At first she didn't notice the battered skeleton in the king's grasp, much less recognize him in his tattered state. But when Asgore carefully held out Gaster for her to take, she found her gaze drawn to his damaged frame. Toriel's chest tightened and she found that she had lost her voice at the sight of him. He looked so small, so frail. She couldn't help but stare in both shock and horror at his half shattered state, the distant and distinctly dead look that clung to his skeletal features sending another unnatural chill through her veins. She barely even heard Asgore speak when he finally composed himself enough to hold his voice steady, and she certainly didn't catch the weary note that clung to his every word. "He needs a skilled healer and a safe place to rest while he recovers.... I shall... search for survivors..."

Gaster looked so... broken. Toriel hardly dared to breath when she finally gathered herself enough that she was able to trust she wouldn't drop him if she tried to carry the battered alchemist. With as much gentle care as she could muster, she cautiously slid the skeleton's alarmingly limp form into her arms and turned away from the dismal scene before them. Gaster was far too lost in his own crumbling world to even notice when he changed hands, not that he would have even cared in his current state. A certain shifting cold had long settled over him. It ran through his bones, fogged his thoughts and made his soul ache. This was his fault as far as he was concerned, it was his fault that everyone in Mistfall was dead. He should have fled, if he had run from the start he could have warned them... he could have protected them. Instead, he had hesitated and now all that was left of the life he had known in the deep woodlands he had loved so much... was nothing more than a swirling cloud of dust.

This was a form of suffering Gaster had never known himself, and it brought with it a pain far deeper... far more all encompassing than he could have imagined possible. He just wanted it to stop, to end... He just wanted to wake up from whatever hellish nightmare he had been dragged into. He just wanted to see the world made right again... To apologize for sleeping in, to share afternoon tea with Asgore and return home to see Mistfall as it should have been. He didn't want this, he couldn't bear it. And before long he found a familiar darkness pressing in on his soul, snaking through him faintly at first. The same smothering weight that had granted him the strength to survive his encounter with the humans crept up on him and swirled around his soul like a heavy quilt... almost loosely at first. It felt soothing and inviting. It felt numbing and safe, and the alchemist found that bit by bit the pain was slipping away. After everything he had lost... After everything he had endured, he found himself clinging to the shadows rather than shoving them away. The darkness blanketed his soul and cast tingling numbness where grief should have been. It surrounded him, it protected him... and in its wake he found a calming quietness within himself. He felt... No, he knew... so long as he held onto this strange darkness, his soul would never know such pain again.

With their friend safely in her grasp, Toriel tried to think of something she could say to Asgore that would perhaps grant him some measure of comfort, oblivious to the sudden shift in Gaster's mental state. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't find her way past the sickening knot that had formed in her throat or the terrible weight that tugged at her heart and soul. The queen hesitated for perhaps only a moment... then started on her way, knowing that there simply wasn't enough time for her to stand there struggling against her own grief and horror. She had never visited the town of Mistfall despite numerous proddings from her husband and all of the passionate stories Gaster had shared of it over the years. She mourned for the names and faces she would never know herself... The smiles and the warmth that had once lit its streets, the kindhearted cheer that she had never for one moment thought would fade and vanish from the world. She had taken the relative safety of the shadowed woodlands for granted, and she had no one but herself to blame.

The glow slowly began to return to Gaster's eye sockets after a time in the form of soft white sparks that Toriel was all too mistaken to find reassuring. He was aware of his surroundings again, though he found that the woodlands meant very little to him anymore. He remained unsettlingly silent, staring up at the canopy above them with an empty expression that smoothed his skeletal features into an eerie stillness. Asgore hesitated on the crest of the hill and watched the queen's retreating figure as she slowly grew more distant. He was loathe to leave them to traverse the woodlands alone, but the king had very little choice in the matter anymore. He slowly turned back to face what remained of the town, knowing full well that there would be nothing within its desolate streets but dust and sorrow. Still... he had a duty to his friends and to his people, and with a steadying breath he forged ahead. Asgore's silken cloak flared out behind him, fluttering in a slight breeze as he descended the hill and strode down towards the half obscured buildings and streets. It didn't matter if he already knew what he would find. Even if there was nothing left, he would search... For if there was even so much as a single skeleton child who had survived this massacre, who had yet to turn to dust... his efforts would not have been in vain.

For what ever hope the king and queen shared, both royals found their journeys equally disheartening despite the distance between them. Toriel's relief over the glow returning to Gaster's eye sockets was one short lived, and she found herself dreading the passing of every moment when the skeleton only seemed to grow more distant. Asgore found a growing pain in his soul with every deserted home he passed and every scattered pile of dust he stumbled upon. Every now and then he would make his way into one house that looked untouched, only to find that its unfortunate residents had been killed while they slept. The shadowed woodlands offered no comfort to the three friends as they traversed its darkened paths, instead only seeming to fill the air with a sense of dread not unlike what most humans felt upon entry. It was only Gaster who was free of the unsettling aura that hung about the darkened boughs and creeping roots, only he found that it didn't bother him.

They could have been traveling for one hour, perhaps even two or three... it didn't really matter anymore. Time seemed to loose its meaning to Gaster and all too soon the sky had darkened above them, the royal capital looming ahead with the shadow of Mt. Ebott towering beyond it. What ever liveliness there had been along the city's brightly lit streets swiftly died away after Toriel returned. A certain grimness settled into the air, the eyes of its residents drawn unfailingly to the half dead skeleton lying limply in her arms. The cobbled roadways cleared rapidly and respectfully, an air of fear spreading like poison through the walled city to the ambiance of storm shutters wordlessly being drawn shut. Murmured concerns softly whispered through the air and hidden eyes followed the queen on her long trek back to the castle. Voices, too dim and numerous to make sense of repeated the same questions over and over again to one another... yet none had any answers. Already a sense of dread was settling over the royal capital, rippling through every household and spreading over the city like a curse. There was nothing Toriel could do to dispel it, no reassuring or hopeful words that she could grant the citizens who looked on with fear for the future in their hearts. For now... all she could do was take her injured friend to the safety of the castle, where she could tend to him without the prying eyes of others interfering.

It almost seemed too soon that Toriel neared the castle gates, and for once she wished that she could have stalled or postponed reaching this point. Rather than finding relief in the presence of her home, the sight of it merely sent a flicker of uncertainty through her. She had always thought the gates were rather beautiful. Never had she grown tired of staring at the silvery swirling patterns that twisted through their barred forms and combined together into the symbol of their people. It had always been enchanting to look upon before, instilling a sense of peace and hope within the queen that she at present found somewhat faint. Instead of reassuring her... the gates seemed almost menacing that night, the towering form of the castle casting a foreboding shadow towards her. She dreaded what she would see when she began to work on Gaster's wounds, though it was not as if she had much time to waste. Rather than hesitating, Toriel carefully made her way towards the gates, noting the lupine guards who were still on duty watching over the castle even at this late hour.

The two wolf men exchanged shocked glances with one another despite having seen the king and queen rush off earlier that morning. The sight of the wounded skeleton in Toriel's arms came as an unexpected and certainly grim surprise to be sure. Still, there was little hesitation between the two armored figures when they threw the gates open for the queen and slipped into position. They stood tall and respectfully waited for her to pass by in dutiful silence, never once thinking to move until she had entered the castle. Though they maintained a stubborn discipline, fear and worry still wormed its way into their hearts. Though they remained silent, their unease still shone dimly through into their eyes. It was not until the queen had vanished past the front doors to the castle that the guards dared do so much as breathe, both wolf men letting out pent up breaths while they moved to close the castle gates. Even when the two armored figures resumed their watch... they muttered quietly to one another, trying to make sense of what they had just seen.

For all she was worth, Toriel only felt the slightest bit better after entering the castle... and it was not as if she paid the grand entry hall so much as a brief glance when she broke from it towards the west wing. The brightly lit corridors of the castle felt oddly suffocating for a change, almost claustrophobic despite their normally comfortable openness. She found her carefully measured pace quickening as she made her way through grand hallways decorated with numerous lovingly embroidered tapestries. Each work of art carefully depicted key moments in the colorful if not somewhat mixed histories of the monster race, though the queen found no joy even when passing the rosiest of weavings. The long walk as so many of those who visited the castle had come to call it, often instilled a sense of hope for the future in those who traveled along it. However, that night it held no such power over Toriel. Alas... the queen didn't so much as cast a single passing glance to even one of the works of art, nor did she acknowledge the presence of any servant she crossed paths with.

Gaster hadn't moved or even breathed since they left Mistfall behind, and such left a burning fear in the queen's soul. She didn't know what to expect, though she knew it could be nothing good. The journey back to the castle had taken far longer than she would have preferred, slowed as it was by the need to be gentle with her friend's damaged form. The dark feeling the had encompassed the skeleton's soul granted him reprieve from the pain he had felt, though it also served to dim all else as well. It led him to stare blankly past Toriel's towering form and he took in their changing surroundings with an air of thundering indifference, hardly caring about much at all. It worried her, the blank emptiness that had overtaken his skeletal features... and it only seemed to grow more unbearable as the moments passed. Gaster didn't much care that they had left the woodlands behind, though he couldn't exactly say he preferred the castle any more or less either. He felt numb... empty... and he didn't particularly see a problem with that after the mortal anguish that had so viciously torn through him that morning. In place of the pain, the sorrow and grief he should have been feeling... He instead found a sense of peace and clarity. At the moment he didn't particularly care for anything anymore, though Gaster still felt an odd compulsion every now and then and his thoughts seemed sharper somehow.

It was inevitable that Toriel eventually brought the alchemist to one of the rooms in the guest wing of the castle. It was a simple albeit welcoming space, kept clean and orderly should ever Gaster or someone else connected with the royal family decided to spend the night. A cozy little table had been set in the center of the room for tea along with a number of chairs ranged around it. A comfortable sized canopy bed and a small bedside table had been set off to one side in full view of the doorway and the single window that marked the space. And... as unfortunate as it was... the overall color scheme of the room seemed to be white with silvery and gold floral embroidery. Everything from the chamber curtains and the canopy above the bed, to the sheets themselves and even the curtains for the window were a vulnerable and easily stained white. Much like the rest of the castle, the space looked bright and cheery, a number of candles already lit within the room. The curtains were drawn to either side and the window was left open, allowing the cool night air of early summer drift inside with the faintest scent of wildflowers.

This welcoming sight however, did nothing to help ease the queen's worries even as she cautiously carried her friend over to the vacant bed. She hesitated for a short while, staring down at the mattress somewhat nervously at the thought of needing to shift him out of her grasp. Still, it was not long before she could finally bring herself to carefully lower Gaster into the soft cushioning sheets. She treated him with the same gentle slowness one would have expected of her were she tending to a frail child, never moving once without considering her actions at length first. Toriel mostly ignored the shimmering red stains in her fur and clothing left by the alchemist's spilled magic, by far too preoccupied to even notice them at first. She had long been swept away by a sense of purposeful urgency that creased her fair features with tense concentration even as she retrieved a chair from the center of the room. She dragged it wordlessly back to the bed and left it there for the time being so she could sit while she worked on the healing. Though... for now Toriel found herself craning over Gaster's still form while she tried to find a way of removing his coat without causing him further harm. She knew full well that she wouldn't be able to remove the garb without causing him some degree of pain, and in all honesty she would have preferred if her friend had been asleep for this. But in the end there weren't many options left to them, especially when one considered the skeleton's current state. With as weak as he had been left, it would have been a terrible idea to tell him to close his eye sockets and get some rest.

The last thing Toriel wanted to think about right then was the possibility of her friend slipping away while she was working. It was with bitter resolve that she began to gently ease Gaster out of his alchemist coat, ignoring her uncertainties for the time being so she could focus on the task at hand. If she was going to heal him, she needed to see what she was doing and she would need to remain steadfast no matter what she found. Dismay wormed its way into her heart when she finally managed to relieve the skeleton of his coat, only to find that he had been wearing a short tunic underneath it. She couldn't help the pained grimace that twisted across her fair features when she caught sight of a jagged piece of the her friend's collar bone protruding from the torn cloth. If that wasn't disheartening enough... his tunic seemed to drape inward slightly around his chest, clinging wetly to the damaged bones. It gave some inkling as to how bad the damage was even without it being removed, and it certainly didn't speak well for his recovery.

With a steadying breath, the queen draped Gaster's ruined coat over the edge of the bed and returned to work, cautiously beginning to ease the magic soaked tunic off. She found that every now and then she had to gently shift the front of his shirt to keep it from getting caught on his broken collar bone. And she couldn't stop the twinge of fear that wormed through her when ever her gaze fell upon the thin streams of red that trailed free of the jagged break. For all of Toriel's internal struggles, the alchemist simply found himself watching the process with some faint note of morbid curiosity. It certainly hurt when ever his shattered collar bone snagged on the torn cloth and his friend was forced to shift the front of his shirt to continue... But the pain seemed far less than it had once been, almost insignificant now. To Gaster, it seemed as though no time had gone by at all by the time Toriel finally managed to remove his tunic and leave it next to his ruined coat. Some faint part of him noted that the damaged clothing would need to be washed and mended... but that could be dealt with later, when he could move. Though more importantly, it could be dealt with when he had been healed and magic was no longer spilling from him like any ordinary monster's blood would have been.

Toriel's thoughts however, couldn't have been farther from what was left of Gaster's clothing. She was far too busy inspecting every sickening inch of damage his rib cage had taken. Nothing could have prepared her for what she had seen when the garb had been safely removed, despite the fact that seeing the tunic draping inwards had been disheartening to begin with. Asgore had managed to stabilize the alchemist's condition, but the situation was still dire... the damage was still horrifying. The most her husband had managed to do was slow the rate at which Gaster was loosing magic, and in truth she wasn't even certain how he had managed that much. Thankfully enough, the tunic and coat their friend had been wearing proved to have been enough to prevent the loss of any bone shards... So Toriel could still piece him back together without leaving anything missing... But that seemed to be about the only bright side to their current situation.

The merciless strike that left him dying and helpless had cleaved through his collar bone near his left shoulder and carved into no less than five of his ribs when the blade passed over his chest. It left his sternum shattered into several pieces and his rib cage completely mangled, making it rather apparent why his magic had started to bleed out of him afterwards. The magic of Gaster's soul held his shattered bones slightly off center from where they were supposed to be, suspending them in a colorless magic field. The broken pieces bobbed slightly in the magic field that kept him together, likely caught by it at some point when his clothing prevented them from ending up on the forest floor. Still, the magic that held him together wasn't enough to stop the loose magic that still seeped from his shattered bones like chilled syrup. It mixed with chunks of bone marrow and ran, thick, red and sluggishly along his broken ribs. Magic seeped even from the shattered pieces that hung loosely suspended in his magic field, dripping onto the skeleton's spine and staining the sheets underneath him.

A breathless gasp escaped Toriel after a few moments of staring at the damage, though it was not the condition of Gaster's broken bones that startled her. Something far worse drew her attention and held it, sending an unsteady tremor through her soul. What she was left staring at was Gaster's soul, wounded, dim and frighteningly exposed now that his rib cage was too mangled to hide it away. The silvery inverted heart seemed so frail and small under the weight of the thin cracks that ran along its surface, and the dimness of its glow certainly didn't inspire confidence. Still... what scared Toriel the most, was the jagged zigzagging breach that split viciously into the center of the weakened soul. It came as such a shock to her that it took the queen a good few seconds to recover from seeing the horrid state Gaster's soul had been left in... And even then, she wasn't alright. The thought of how close their friend had come to collapsing into dust made her heart race and sent another unsteady tremor through her soul. She didn't want to think of the possibility that he might still fall down even after she was finished healing him, and with some difficulty she managed to push her fears away. He needed her right now, and with a bracing breath Toriel hovered her paws over the alchemist's shattered chest to begin.

It took her a short while to clear her mind so she could heal him properly, but at the very least she was used to it by now. She had always been far better at throwing aside her own fears and doubts than Asgore when it came to healing someone, perhaps thanks to how much effort she had put into developing the skill. She couldn't help but admire her husband for at least trying despite his struggles with the healing arts. He might not have been able to heal Gaster exactly, but he had still bought them valuable time, time that he would not have had otherwise. It was only a few moments later that a soft green glow pulsed into existence around the queen's paws and a soothing mist like aura drifted out over the alchemist. Almost immediately, she felt a faint twinge of annoyance and worry threatening to rear up inside of her. She recognized the lingering traces of potent magic that still clung to Gaster's bones, and it suddenly made a lot more sense why he had been so stable on the trip back to the castle. For the time being, Toriel made a mental note to reprimand her husband when he returned home. But it wouldn't do to waste time and energy thinking of what she would say to him just then.

Toriel knew that even she couldn't fix **_this mess_** completely, but she could at the very least bring their friend to a point where he could heal the rest of the damage naturally over time. As with most healing magic, there were a few brief moments of discomfort to be expected when the green aura washed over Gaster, though it didn't receive much more of a reaction from him than a slight twitch. He knew that the pain was only going to last a few seconds and he didn't have a problem waiting for the queen's magic to wash away the sensation. It might have been worse than he was been expecting, but Toriel knew what she was doing and it only made sense that he should let her focus on the task at hand. So it was with a startling sense of indifference that he watched her magic slowly swirl around the shattered pieces of his chest in thin tendrils of green. The magic shifted broken bits of bone around gently and slowly, easing the shattered pieces back together as carefully as could be managed. Gaster should have been frightened or sickened by the sight, or at the very least he should have been struggling to hold himself still past the stabbing pains that every small movement caused him. Instead... he found each piercing jolt of pain that shot through him when one of the shattered pieces was forced back into place, somewhat irrelevant. He simply accepted what was happening with the air of one who was considering nothing more than a change in the weather.

It took Toriel a lot less time to finish piecing together his shattered rib cage and mending it as best she could than he would have expected, though the damage was still extensive. Scouring cracks remained where each bone had been shattered, oozing magic like chilled molasses and making it quite obvious that he would be recovering from the incident for quite some time. It was a good thing that the outward flow of his magic had slowed to such an extent after all the work the queen had put into repairing Gaster's damaged bones, but it wasn't enough to put her at ease. She hadn't been so busy as to miss the fact that her friend had been silent through the entire healing process, despite the fact that it should have been painful even with all the effort she was putting into being careful. Even now he seemed to stare at the remaining damage with a certain disturbing quietness and indifference that twisted her stomach into anxious knots. It was enough to make her hesitate when she went to look at Gaster's HP, wondering exactly what she would see and perhaps dreading what she would find. A part of her didn't want to know, but if she was going to see to it that her friend survived the night, she didn't have a choice. With a bit of a bracing breath, she turned her gaze from the healing she was maintaining, stubbornly keeping the flow of magic going while she inspected Gaster's stats. What she saw caused her soul to give a startled lurch and her heart began to race again, the healing magic she was maintaining shuddering and dimming until she could force herself to stabilize it again.

It hurt to keep hold of her magic after that, but even when the beginnings of tears started to sting her eyes... she didn't surrender to stubborn ache tightening her chest. Her doubts kept swirling back into her thoughts despite her best efforts and she continuously had to keep pushing them away. Even if she hadn't had the healing she was trying to maintain to worry about, she still didn't want to know what state Gaster's HP had been in when she first started. And she didn't want to think of what would have become of him had she taken even a few extra minutes to reach the castle. It was a struggle, but Toriel continued to weave healing magic over her friend's damaged form for a long while and continually checked back on his stats every few minutes to see if the mere thirty HP he had left would improve. After what seemed like an eternity in which her healing magic was having relatively no effect on Gaster's condition, the queen finally just gave up, worry shadowing her fair features. She could do no more for him with healing magic, the rest would be up to his own body and soul to handle. And to say she didn't like the thought of leaving him in such a fragile state, certainly would have been an understatement. For a long while Toriel simply sat there examining what remained of the alchemist's wounds, hesitant to leave despite the fact that she knew he would need dressings for his damaged bones.

It was with a heavy breath that she eventually forced herself to stand and turn for the door, though she hesitated for a moment when she stood a number of feet from the hall. It took her a long while to find a way past the tightness in her throat and the uncomfortable knot in her chest, but eventually Toriel managed to find her voice for the first time since seeing what had become of Mistfall. There was a soft and somewhat wavering note to her words, though she did her best to sound like she had some measure of control over the situation. "I shall be right back, please remain still for now. Your wounds are very grave." If Gaster had noticed or even cared about the thinly veiled emotion in her voice when she glanced over her shoulder to look at him, he certainly didn't show it. The only response the queen was given to her small request, was a silent nod from the alchemist which only served to put her even more ill at ease. With few options however, she silently departed to search for the nearest servant who could fetch what she needed for Gaster's wounds. The skeleton spent the time in which she was gone staring out the window into the darkened night sky with an unnatural stillness about him that would have made any unwary passerby nervous.

Gaster's thoughts were relatively quiet and he found that reassuring, though many would have disagreed with that point of view. Some faint part of him recalled that he should have been thinking of the lives that had been lost that day, the gleaming eye sockets and grinning faces that he would never see again. That faint recollection however, was far from enough to dispel the weight that dulled down anything he had once felt for them or anything he should have been feeling for them now. Instead of caring as he should have, those names and faces he had once cherished... faded like a passing thought and his mind began to wander elsewhere. He instead began to puzzle over the the possible reasons behind the attack, faintly curious of what the prospect of such a perfect extermination meant for the future of monster kind. If mankind had accomplished such a grim feat once, they would surely see it again. And from what he had seen, they had no way of knowing precisely how the humans had so completely eradicated Mistfall without alerting anyone of their movements or actions. Beyond that, it seemed as though they didn't know how the humans had so utterly vanished afterwards either. As far as he was aware... they had left only the dust strewn streets, a number of tracks, and none of their own casualties behind. Gaster absent mindedly traced the largest of the scouring cracks that ran through his sternum with the very tips of a number of his fingers, hardly caring about the stains of liquid magic they gathered as a result.

Now was not the time for him to be contemplating the hundreds of questions that came to mind, of which he had none of the answers he needed anyway... or even really any information to start building a decent speculation with. Aside from that, there was the obvious. He had lost a startling amount of magic over time and would need to replenish it if he was going to recover. He could start unraveling the mysteries of the attack one by one after he had healed, and perhaps then a few less monsters would die in the future. He didn't quite remember why he cared about people he had never even met being killed. But it still lingered there in the form of some strange compulsion, almost as though it had once been ingrained habit. After a brief glance to his stats, Gaster decided that he was stable enough to afford for a small amount of sleep without it placing his life in direct jeopardy. There was always a possibility that a monster could fall into a killing sleep after retaining such extensive damages in such a short amount of time... But the doctor in him reasoned that he wouldn't be asleep long enough for it to be a concern. With his fears and uncertainties silenced, it was all too easy to remember that Toriel would be constantly checking on his stats to make certain his condition wasn't going to worsen even by a small degree. So long as she continued watching over him and checking on his wounds, it was very unlikely that he would be able to sleep for very long in any one span no matter how weak he had become. And so it was with by far less reluctance than Gaster should have felt, that he closed his eye sockets and went to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Apathy!!! And I'm not sure if you can call that depression anymore... Mild gore still present though not as extensive.
> 
> Disclaimer: Undertale owned by Toby Fox

**Chapter 4**

If rest was meant to be a reprieve from the exhaustion that dragged at the alchemist, it was truly nothing more than a cruel joke. Dark shadows, biting arrowheads, the tips of swords and those haunting hate filled eyes danced in and out of his dreams. The cries of dying skeletons tormented him in his every resting moment. Familiar voices echoed out to him with a resounding emptiness, pained and filled with fear. They hovered almost tauntingly, real and yet false, always just barely beyond his desperate reach. It was only here that Gaster couldn't escape the rending sorrow that shadowed him in the waking world, only here where the heaviness in his soul couldn't protect him. It stabbed and tore into him both mind and soul, taunting him with whispers of how it had all been his fault. They echoed and seethed with a brutal clarity that made him wish everything in the world would just come to an end. When ever he was convinced the worst had already come... The dreams would shift and warp further, melding into some newfound horror that struck freshly and cut deeply.

When Toriel at last returned with the items she needed for Gaster's wounds, she found herself frozen in place by the sight that greeted her. A tight knot settled into her chest at a moment's notice and she halted in the doorway, unable to move. The alchemist shuddered and shook in his sleep, his breaths ragged and trembling under the weight of horrors only he could see. Thin trails of glowing red tears ran down the sides of his skull and soaked into the sheets underneath him, only further adding to the crimson splotches that ruined the white cloth. It wasn't until a faint whimper escaped Gaster that Toriel was finally able to shake off the initial shock of seeing him like that... And by that point, she was far too worried about her friend to bother being upset with herself for hesitating. She was beside him in an instant, shoving away the items she had collected so she could press a paw gently against the skeleton's uninjured shoulder and the opposite side of his skull. She couldn't risk shaking him awake, so instead she muttered lowly to him with a stern urgency that almost swept away the worry that crept into her voice. "Gaster you are having a nightmare. You need to wake up." At first Toriel's gentle prodding didn't seem to be helping at all and faint wisps of crimson light even began to trail away from his closed eye sockets. But after a few more terrifying seconds, one final tremor passed through his slumbering form and he awoke with a shuddering gasp.

If the queen hadn't been pressing her paw gently against his shoulder, he might have managed to force himself upright before she could stop him. Fortunately enough, while unprepared for the sudden movement, she managed to keep him from further hurting himself. Gaster's eye sockets snapped open the moment he realized that he couldn't move, a burning crimson glow blazing wildly in their shadowed depths like twin torches. The red sparks in his eye sockets darted around the room, tracing every outline with an almost fevered air. But it only took him a short while to remember where he actually was, and after that it wasn't as if Toriel had to hold him down anymore. A shuddering breath escaped him and he relaxed into the sheets again, a trembling note still clinging to his damaged form. The shock of being pulled from his own personal hell left Gaster shivering where she held him, gasping in frantic breaths that he didn't even need. It wasn't easy to miss the distant... haunted expression that had overtaken his skeletal features, which only served to further worsen the queen's fears. She watched quietly while he brought a trembling hand to his skull, and Toriel found herself wishing for all she was worth that she had arrived sooner to free him from his torment. As it was, she found the way he was staring **_through_** her extremely unsettling... as though he wasn't even seeing the rest of the room, as though he were still trapped in what ever foul nightmare it was that had held him prisoner.

He looked broken... and after a brief glance at the faint glow within his rib cage... the queen was forced to admit to herself that it was possible he really was. Regardless, the darkness rushed back in to greet Gaster like a refreshing breeze and wordlessly wound around his soul. It betrayed nothing when it dulled the fear, grief and sorrow that had cut into him as real as any arrow or sword while he had slept. Only a few moments seemed to have passed before his skeletal features grew lax and his trembling came to an end. As though the nightmare had never been, the crimson glow in his eye sockets dimmed down and faded back into steady white sparks, betraying nothing. Too quickly his shuddering breaths steadied... Too quickly he regained control of himself... and Toriel certainly didn't find the blank stare that replaced his haunted expression reassuring in the least. It was with an air of hesitance that she slowly pulled away, though she didn't for so much as a moment take her gaze off of her friend. Everything she had seen thus far only brought her to further fear for his well being, she didn't know how he was going to recover from nearly dying and then loosing so much so soon afterward. She didn't even know how much of the person he had once been would be left after he had healed, or how she could even begin to help him.

The two remained in silence for a time, until Gaster finally finished lapsing into the same apathetic state as before. He could have remained silent for the entire night and he wouldn't have particularly cared... But some faint inclination from somewhere in his memory told him that he should have been trying to ease Toriel's worries. The distant feeling was barely enough to prompt him into action, but it was still enough to convince him that something had to be done. With far more reluctance than he ever should have felt, he began to call upon what magic he had at his disposal thanks to Toriel and Asgore's combined efforts to save him. After a brief glance at his stats, he measured himself rather carefully and tuned back the amount of magic he put into making the constructs to the bare minimum of what they would require to manifest. The result was that his spare set of hands took a short while longer to appear... though it was not as if he was in any kind of rush to speak and he wouldn't have really even cared if he had been. When the constructs finally phased into view with a dim blue glow, they were mostly transparent and looked far more fragile than they normally were when Gaster summoned them. Still, they were stable enough to suit his purposes.

Before the alchemist had even started speaking, Toriel had already tensed and began to stare at the faint forms of his spare set of hands... far more irritated with herself than she was with her friend. She would have argued against him wasting his magic on something as pointless as conversation in his condition... That is, if she hadn't already deposited a fair bit of her own power into his damaged form. Unfortunately, seeing as she had decided to try restoring a bit of his strength in the hopes of keeping him stable... She didn't really have much ground to stand on and reluctantly began to watch when he started to speak. She didn't like the harsh rasping note that crept into his words courtesy of his lingering injuries, but other than that... the odd chiming tones seemed steady enough to her. _'... I am alright, it was just a dream.'_ There were no signs of strain on Gaster's spare set of hands when they flickered through a translation for her and she supposed that was a good thing. However... There was a note of doubt to any hopeful thoughts Toriel might have held towards her friend's recovery, so long as the distant emptiness that marked his skeletal features remained.

It was with an air of reluctance that she sighed through her nose and began to sift through the few items she had collected from the servants, a deathly silence falling between them for a time. Several minutes passed like that before the queen chanced to speak, a quiet concern marking her words when she finally took up a roll of bandages and a small bottle of healing ointment. "I am a mother, Gaster. I know what a nightmare looks like... You were trembling and crying in your sleep. I will not ask you to share it with me if you do not wish to, but even with as young as Arun is... he still finds that speaking of such things makes them far less difficult to recover from." She hadn't been expecting much of a response from her friend and in truth she wasn't surprised when the only answer for her attempts at easing his troubled mind came in the form of an empty silence. Toriel couldn't particularly blame him for it. After all, she didn't know how much of the massacre he had been forced to watch. And in truth, she didn't even know what he had gone through when Mistfall was destroyed. All she knew as she craned over Gaster and began gently easing the healing ointment into the cracks that marked his broken bones... was that he needed far more than healing magic and gentle care. His soul had taken extensive damage from the incident, and while the shallower cracks would heal given time and proper care.... The jagged zigzagging breech in the center of the small inverted heart was a much more worrying dilemma.

Such severe cracks could break a monster's spirit if the damage didn't cause their soul to shatter entirely. And once a soul, human, monster or otherwise lost the will to live... it might as well have shattered already. Toriel had thankfully enough never had the misfortune of seeing such an occurrence for herself and she hoped she never would. Still, she had heard far too many legends and tales of mighty creatures brought to their knees by a broken heart... only to collapse into dust a time later after their souls gave in to despair. Despite her misgivings, and the soul shaking worry she held for Gaster... The queen worked with steady hands, adamantly refusing to do anything that would cost him so much as a single one of his remaining thirty HP. Though he seemed oblivious to her inner conflicts, he still watched Toriel as she worked, all the while remaining almost unsettlingly still. He never once flinched at her touch, not even when she ran across several particularly tender cracks in his damaged bones and her fussing sent severe stabbing pains through him.

Toriel meant well, and Gaster knew from experience that she was doing everything right, so he didn't really mind the pain. If anything, he had started taking note of the areas that seemed to have healed less quickly than others. He began carefully mapping out and memorizing where his rib cage would be weakest by the time he had begun to recover. After all, he didn't plan on simply lying still for six weeks while he healed. He had never taken a substantial break from his work before, and he didn't plan on doing so now either. Of all the distant compulsions that tugged at Gaster's thoughts, directing him to do things where he otherwise saw no reason to act... The nagging feeling that he should have been doing **_something_** right about then was by far the most persistent. It almost seemed too soon that Toriel finished spreading the healing ointment into the cracks along his damaged bones, and Gaster barely even noticed it when she took up the bandages again. A grim air hung about the queen while she worked despite her best efforts to remain positive. And intent on holding the bones in place so they could mend properly without causing Gaster any more harm, she carefully wrapped the breaks as tightly as she dared. It was a slow going task that required her to bind each bone individually in increasingly difficult ways, though she worked without the slightest sign of growing irritated. There was a certain, almost worrying resolve about Toriel as she worked... One that likely would have sent any unwelcome visitors scurrying away before they could even think to speak with her. Yet even with as unreceptive as she seemed, many would have argued that this was a task more suited to a servant or a practiced doctor... That, the queen should not have been lowering herself to perform such an act herself. Toriel however, would trust none other than herself to see to Gaster's recovery, and woe be to the fool who dared say otherwise.

The silence that hung between them lasted an unsettlingly long while, and still neither of them seemed ready to speak even after Toriel drew away to retrieve the healing ointment from where she had left it. There had been a stain growing underneath the skeleton's battered form even after she had mended his rib cage enough that it shouldn't have been the cause. Naturally she had all too worriedly taken note of it, though up until that point she had been too busy seeing to the worst of the damage to look into what was causing it. Now that she had the time however, she was not about to ignore it. As gently as she could manage, Toriel slipped a paw under Gaster's skull and finally broke the silence with a soft murmur. She worried about how she was supposed to move him without putting strain on his damaged bones, but she didn't have very many options. "I am going to need to move you if I am to see to your spine. Please try not to flinch, and if the pain is too severe, give me a warning. We will find another way to tend to the injury."

For an unsettlingly long while he just stared at Toriel blankly, silently watching her with a distinctly distant nature to his gaze. It wasn't until it seemed as though he was going to refuse that he simply nodded softly and closed his eye sockets, relaxing completely into her grasp. As worried as she was about Gaster's silence and the way he had looked **_through_** her... The queen was still much more intent on seeing to the magic that was even now slowly seeping out of him bit by agonizingly minuscule bit. Cautiously, carefully, she slid her paw along his spine and gently angled him upwards with the same slow care one would have expected of her were she tending to a crippled child. All through the process she watched him for any signs of discomfort, ready to stop at a moment's notice if she had to. Unfortunately, she would get no such warnings from Gaster. The heavy shadows that wrapped around his soul made the pain that jabbed at his ribs and spine with every minuscule movement, far less important to him than it should have been. As a result, Toriel had no way of knowing that she was causing him any discomfort at all despite her best efforts to spare him any more pain. He didn't outwardly show any signs of suffering, there was nothing there for her to pick up on.

It didn't take the queen very long to find the problem of course, though she would have preferred the damage to be less severe for Gaster's sake if nothing else. Both the seventeenth and the eighteenth vertebra in his spine were spider webbed with severe cracks. The damage started between the two bones and spread outward as though something had been viciously rammed between them and stuck there. She was perhaps less surprised by the sight than she should have been, but after seeing the extents of the alchemist's other injuries, this seemed minor. She didn't know very much about how skeleton's handled damage, and she would have preferred to know more... But seeing as he hadn't been snapped in half... she assumed, rather rightly, that it had either been an arrow or a bolt that had caused the cracking. It was very likely that if Toriel could have afforded to grow angry just then, she probably would have. But for the moment, her greatest concern was making sure Gaster lasted through the night.

Instead of allowing herself to grow upset over how cruelly her friend had been treated, she began to gently spread the healing ointment over the cracks in each damaged bone with her free hand. She could worry about what the future held for all of them after she was done. And perhaps when Gaster was more stable, she could afford to become angered by the incident. It wasn't very long before the queen had finished applying the ointment and began to bandage the injury... And at some point during the process, the alchemist drifted off again, not even aware of it himself when he slipped into unconsciousness. This time his slumber proved relatively brief and mercifully dreamless, such that when he began to awaken, it felt as though no time had passed at all. He might have even drifted off again if not for the sound of Asgore's voice somewhere in the room with him. A certain grim and resigned note clung to the king's every word, something that made it seem as though he was preparing for something much worse to come. And Gaster, did not doubt that he was wiser for it. ".... There was no one left. And the other nearby towns and villages were just the same. For all of my searching, I found only a small number of survivors. And all of them guards, militiamen, or those that had left for one reason or another before the attacks that swept through each settlement."

The king's words were met with an unsettlingly long silence in which neither he nor the queen spoke, until at last Toriel asked a question that had even begun to bother the alchemist by now. "How many survivors were there?" A cold, condemning stillness hung in the air in the wake of her question, empty and wordless. And once more silence fell over the room, as though Asgore didn't truly wish to give her an answer. It was during this time that Gaster finally opened his eye sockets, only to see that the chamber curtains around the guest bed had been half drawn shut and the lighting in the room had shifted. Rather than the relatively comfortable light that had marked the space before, a much brighter glow shone against the chamber curtains. It fell across the cloth and filtered through it with a faint almost orange hue, casting long shadows over its surface. It was not yet dawn, Gaster was certain of that much from the way the light flickered and shifted like that of a candle.

As to why Toriel found the need to further brighten the space however, he could not have been certain. Before his mind could truly turn back to the events of that morning, the dark feeling protecting his soul slowly crept back over him. It blocked out the pain that should have come with his memories of the incident, and he found little reason to dwell on it. Even though Gaster was listening, eavesdropping on their conversation without the slightest inkling of guilt... he found that he cared far less than he by any rights should have. There had once been a time when he would have found the lengthy silence completely unbearable. Now however, it seemed completely meaningless to him. He could have waited for entire hours and it wouldn't have mattered to him. He would have simply lain there patiently to hear what the king had to say, as if he had nothing better to do. It wasn't as if he could have moved from where he was anyway.

When at last the silence was breached, it had been with the sound of a quiet, almost heartbroken sigh. Asgore couldn't remain silent forever, and Toriel would learn of the true horror the day had seen before long regardless. It was rather reluctantly that the king at last answered her after what felt like hours of emptiness, a thoughtful and reserved quality to his every word. He was obviously maintaining a steady composure if for no other reason than to avoid crying in front of the queen, which he very rarely ever permitted himself to do. "We have yet to do an official headcount. However, for the time being, it would seem as though no more than two hundred skeletons have survived this day." Asgore's words were met with a choked gasp from Toriel the moment the damning news had been voiced aloud. And within a number of seconds a rather heavy creek followed suit, as though she had found a sudden need to sit down. The silence that followed was relatively brief, in which time the queen fought to compose herself again to a point where she could at least speak. When her voice filled the space Asgore's words had left behind, it was quiet and wavering, an unsteadiness to it that suggested she was struggling not to cry. "Only two hundred... in all The Woodlands of Cree...."

Even beyond the darkness that closed off his soul from the rest of the world, Gaster couldn't help but feel an uncomfortable twinge as his suppressed emotions threatened to resurface. The discomfort lasted only a brief few moments however, and all too soon he found that the shadowing weight had snatched it away from him. In truth he couldn't really have cared any less, it had been an uncomfortable distraction and it wasn't as though he would miss the feeling now that it was gone. Some faint part of him thought that his reaction was wrong somehow, though the thought was swiftly pushed away as were most of his faint recollections. Rather than mourning those who had died as he very well should have been, Gaster turned his blank gaze to the canopy of cloth above him in silent contemplation. The white sparks in his eye sockets began to absent mindedly trace along the swirling floral patterns of silver and gold embroidery, and he began to run the numbers through his mind.

If there were only two hundred skeletons left from the clan that called The Woodlands of Cree their home... his clan... then the humans had eradicated easily eight settlements. And if Gaster recalled properly the population of each town or village... That would have meant the humans had easily exterminated more than five thousand skeletons before noon. It wasn't too hard to believe the attacks had been so successful if one took into account the relative closeness to human settlements each town or village had suffered from. And when one considered the relatively lax manner in which the skeletons of Cree had always defended their homes.... It seemed all too easy. There had been no warning between attacks from the way Asgore had spoken of it, which suggested that each raid had been performed around roughly the same time in the early hours of morning. It made sense from a logical standpoint at any rate. If nothing else such a tactic would have meant that any town strong or lucky enough to survive couldn't have possibly warned the others before chaos had already taken to their streets.

Gaster was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he barely even noticed when the king started speaking again. And if not for the sudden change in his voice, he might not have caught a word of what Asgore had said. The thoughtful and reserved mask that the king had been holding onto was beginning to crack and fall apart, a sorrowful, almost heartbroken softness working its way into his words. "I have already sent messengers to all monster settlements within a day's walking distance of any human structures, and I have dispatched a number of small detachments to those at greatest risk. We may not know precisely what it is that we are facing, but if our troops have even the smallest chance of saving lives..." Asgore trailed off when a somewhat trembling note began to work its way into his words, stubbornly refusing to continue if he couldn't at the very least manage to keep his voice steady. Fortunately enough for the king however, he didn't need to finish what he had been saying, for Toriel already knew the trail of thought he had been following and spoke up in his place to finish it. ".... Then it is worth the risk."

The queen sounded truly shaken, though Gaster knew that she was likely already drying what ever tears she had shed and steadying her resolve for what was to come. In the wake of such grimness, an almost unnatural and unmistakably tense silence stood between the two royals in which neither spoke nor dared to try. The day had seen more horror and loss than either of them wanted to admit was real. And for all of their hopes for the future, they knew very well that this was only the beginning. When at last the silence was broken, it was Toriel who had done so, a weary note to her voice that sent worry twisting through her every word. "He is resting now... His wounds are grave... However.... it is not the broken bones that have me worried." The king sounded sad and perhaps a bit grim in his reply, though his words stood as little more than a tense whisper that came in its own time. "He has endured a great loss this day Tori, he has a right to his grief."

A tense sigh escaped the queen in the moments of silence that followed Asgore's response, and it was with some hesitation that she dared to speak again. Uncertainty tugged at her voice as surely as the dread that clutched at her heart and soul... everything had become so incredibly skewed in such a short amount of time... "Asgore... I wish it were only that. His soul is..." She trailed off, unsure of how to explain the situation to her husband, unsure of how she was going to tell him of Gaster's uncertain condition. Unfortunately, she didn't have very long to consider how she was going to approach the situation, for she had already said both too little and too much. Asgore's response was immediate and quite severe. A number of rushed footsteps and the sound of rustling cloth reached the alchemist and the king's shadow swept past the curtain that blocked his view of the room. He had obviously lost his composure and begun to panic at the mention of Gaster's soul, for there hadn't even been a moment's pause between when Toriel had trailed off and when he began to speak himself. Asgore's voice had risen a great deal and his words almost seemed to string together in his haste to speak, though even his rushed manner couldn't hide the fear and worry that had enveloped him. **"His soul?!? What is wrong with his soul?!?"**

It didn't take long for the queen to start rushing to reassure her husband, to soothe the panic that was welling up inside of Asgore after she had unintentionally scared him. She spoke quickly at first, though she slowed over time as though trying to calm a frightened child. There was a steady concern to her words, but also a far softer and much kinder note to them as well. "It is alright, he is stable for now. His soul is not going to shatter just yet. Most of the damage it sustained will heal quickly just as he does..." Toriel's words were met with a shuddering sigh and a much louder creak filled the air as the king sat down, the very edge of his cloak shifting into Gaster's field of view. Of what the alchemist could see, it looked as though Asgore had rushed all across The Woodlands of Cree several times over. The once pristine purple silk now bore a liberal coating of dirt, mud and other woodland debris along its hem, as well as having claimed a number of jagged tares during the king's travels. The sight of it drew Gaster's attention and he found himself staring at the tattered fabric, something faint and waning shifting about within him that might have at one point been gratitude.

After that he more or less... got lost? He wasn't really sure when he had started spacing out, still staring at the ruined fabric as though it had taken on a hypnotic quality or something of the like. And it was possible that he might have remained that way forever if Asgore hadn't broken the silence that had formed between he and Toriel. The king sounded tired. There was a certain, unmistakable weariness to his words... as though he was certain that what ever answer Toriel gave him was one that he wouldn't find uplifting. "There is something more. You would not have mentioned his soul at all if there were not something gravely wrong." Asgore was right of course, though the queen couldn't stop a tired sigh from escaping her in the moments that followed. When Toriel finally found the courage to continue, she lowered her voice to little more than a whisper, as if she didn't wish to be overheard by any passing servants... Or as though she feared that mentioning the condition of Gaster's soul would awaken him. "His soul is wounded Asgore. It does not seem life threatening, but I do not know how it will effect him.... And... even if it does heal with time.... such a deep wound is going to leave a scar. I... I do not know if he will be able to recover from this..."

Another weary sigh trailed through the air in response to Toriel's worries, and after a short while the king spoke again, the same almost exhausted note lingering in his voice as before. "We will just need to take this one day at a time Tori. Gaster will be alright given time and our support. He does not know it himself, but he is very strong. This will not be enough to break him... though, he will need us now more than ever." If the queen had meant to respond, she certainly didn't get the opportunity to. Any further conversation was abruptly cut off when the sounds of rushing footsteps approached the guest wing. It hardly seemed a moment later that a rather disheveled looking and breathless feline monster almost sprang into view, the somewhat skewed dark blue uniform of a sentry standing out against her midnight fur. The sentry rather clumsily took a knee after nearly collapsing outside of the room and forced out an apology before she had even given herself the time to catch her breath. There was a note of near panic to the feline's every movement and word, though she still made certain to show the proper respect to the two royals. "M-my apologies... for the interruption... M-my King and Queen... B-but I bring dire news... from C-Clarion... i-in the east."

An unsettling heaviness clung to the air at the mention of Clarion, as though the feline's mere presence itself had dragged a certain grimness into existence. Asgore stood almost immediately, the rustling of cloth filling the air when his cloak trailed along behind him on his way to the sentry. It almost seemed too soon that he passed into Gaster's field of view, his clothes and fur still stained with the alchemist's spilled magic. If that wasn't enough... several patches of dust clung to his now worn boots and the legs of his trousers, betraying just how grim his travels had been. It was a dismal sight that sent a much more prominent twinge of discomfort through the skeleton's soul, but as before the feeling didn't last very long. Though Asgore was exhausted and felt aged after everything that had happened that day, he seemed to have regained his near stoic composure relatively quickly. The king offered a massive paw to the exhausted sentry, his voice completely even and measured when he took the time to address her. "Perhaps you should take a few moments to recover. Should you faint here and now, it will be some time before you are able to share with us what news you have to give."

It was with some reluctance that the feline accepted Asgore's paw, nodding a bit breathlessly while he helped her back to her feet. She looked a tad unsteady at first and the king made no efforts to pull away from her until after a few moments later, when she seemed to recover a bit. Only when it looked as though the breathless sentry wouldn't topple over without someone there to steady her, did Asgore release her paw and take a step back to wait patiently for what ever message she had come to deliver. Clarion was a human kingdom to the east of their official borders that stood a truly great distance from the capital of the monster kingdom. It had for some time been their closest and most reasonable neighbor. And many of the human settlements that reached into the monster kingdom along its eastern trade routes, were the result of old treaties of commerce with the very first of its kings. Asgore kept this firmly in mind for the time being, nearly certain that the news was far more disturbingly grim in nature than a simple message from the current king of Clarion. He doubted that the sentry was there to report a warning sent by Clarion regarding a band of deviants crossing into the monster kingdom.

When at last the sentry had recovered enough to speak, she shifted her footing slightly and stood at attention. The girl struggled and failed to hide a note of panic in her voice when she began to explain her reason for being there, though she still made a commendable effort. "The message comes directly from Clarion castle sire, a ghost formerly in residence there as seen..." The feline paused when she noticed the rising edge in her voice and more or less struggled to calm herself over the course of the next few seconds. When it became obvious enough to her that she wasn't going to succeed, she surrendered and simply blurted out the news with a nervous twitch of her tail. "The humans of Clarion kingdom.... The humans are using magic your highness!!!" A shocked silence fell in the wake of this dire news, the same question on everyone's mind. How was this possible? Asgore was the first one to shake off the almost paralyzing effect the sentry's words had caused, a creeping chill crawling along his back even when next he spoke. The king tried to remain calm and collected, in all honesty he truly did. But there was nothing he could do to banish the edge that worked its way into his voice. "Humans using magic? That is impossible. Where is this ghost from Castle Clarion?"

Asgore's question wasn't left unanswered for very long, seeing as a low and somewhat drawn out moan echoed through the air a few moments later with an unsettling ethereal lilt to it. "Heeeeereeee." To accompany the voice, a mostly shapeless white transparent form drifted through the wall nearest the sentry and hovered at her side. The feline gasped and almost jumped out of her skin when the ghost appeared next to her, an involuntary shiver passing through her. She muttered lowly to herself, trying to get rid of the prickling feeling that started to crawl up her arms with the ghost's entrance. "Ugh.... I hate it when they do that..." The king more or less ignored the sentry's discomfort and turned to the ghost, glancing him over briefly before speaking to the transparent thing with a note of worry to his words. "You came here to report that the humans of The Clarion Kingdom have found a way of harnessing magical power. Humans have never possessed magic nor have they ever displayed the potential to use it, how is it they have gained this ability now?"

Gaster and Toriel watched in silence, the queen more out of worry than curiosity, where as the skeleton's interest was difficult for even him to pinpoint. The ghost sighed, a low shifting note that seemed to drag on and hang in the air much longer than it should have. At any other time, Asgore would have had no issue waiting patiently for the ghost to finish thinking about his answer before giving him something he could use. However, at the moment he was struggling with far too many things at the same time and rapidly found his patience waning. It was not until the king had begun to wonder if the ghost would ever speak, that the transparent creature's shifting voice finally broke the silence that hung in the air. "They have been working on it for some time now as near as I can tell.... I did not report it sooner because it did not look like much at first.... I was wandering the halls about one.... no two hundred years ago.... and I saw the humans fiddling about with some strange blue gemstones from one of the tower windows.... I did not think much of it at the time... but recently, after awakening from a bit of a nap... I saw them using the stones in some peculiar sort of ritual.... And the strangest thing happened.... One of the humans shouted something.... and he suddenly conjured fire from nothing."

Another heavy silence fell over the room while the ghost spoke, his low, droning way of speaking meaning that it took him a great deal longer to say anything than any ordinary monster would have taken. This time when the silence was broken however, it was not by Asgore or Toriel, or even the sentry for that matter.... but by Gaster instead. At the mention of strange blue gemstones... a faint memory had returned to him about a dead end experiment he had performed with a number of interesting minerals that seemed to have held magical properties at the time. The skeleton shifted in bed somewhat, an especially painful twinge in his ribs and spine discouraging him from moving any further for the time being. He found that he didn't particularly care either way and began to summon what was left of his magic from right where he was. He hardly even minded the uncomfortable tugging that summoning his spare set of hands caused on his rather limited remaining supply. The constructs simply flickered into existence just beyond the chamber curtain that concealed his chest, shoulders and skull from view, faint as before. They hung there motionlessly for a short while, as though simply waiting to be noticed.

Gaster wouldn't have had to wait for very long as the constructs weren't the most subtle of things even at their current level of transparency. They drew the eye nearly as compellingly as any magic of significant strength, and the gaze of both king and queen fell upon them before too long. After a brief pause, Gaster began to speak, ignoring the worrying rasp that tugged at his voice while the mostly transparent constructs flickered through the familiar gestures of a translation for him. He didn't know if Asgore and Toriel were paying attention, and half of him didn't rightly care anymore if they even still remembered he was there. _'Esoteric stones. I studied them for a time... Though it became rather clear that they were useless to us when I discovered that they could not hold a magical charge. True, you can flood energy into the stones, but it fades nearly as quickly as one can transfer their own magic into them.'_ An almost unnatural stillness fell over the room while the constructs translated what Gaster was saying, a time in which no one else spoke or moved as if in fear that the slightest disturbance would cause his focus to falter. After the hands at last fell still again, a slight creek betrayed Toriel standing up and moving over to the bed. Her shadow fell over the curtain for a moment and she gently eased it to one side after a brief second of hesitation. Worry etched her features as she gazed down at the skeleton, a certain softness to her voice when she finally spoke. "You are awake... Gaster... I am sorry if we disturbed you."

The alchemist only stared back at her with an unsettling emptiness to his gaze that sent another twinge of doubt twisting into the queen's heart. She had begun to wonder if it would have been more merciful to simply let him pass rather than making him live with what he had lost. But every time such frightening thoughts came to her, she stubbornly forced them aside. It wasn't like her to doubt so easily, she shouldn't have found holding onto hope for Gaster's recovery so difficult. The king's gaze followed Toriel, and though he didn't move from where he was standing, her hesitation and their friend's subsequent silence was telling enough. It was impossible to deny that Gaster was in a sorry state and needed to save his strength. Still, he needed to know more. Asgore closed his eyes for a time and sighed almost silently through his nose before speaking directly to Gaster, though he would have preferred to let his friend rest. "How could the humans be using these **_Esoteric stones_** to summon and control magic? And if you have studied them, is there a way to take away the power they have obtained from them?"

Another heavy silence dragged at the room while the skeleton considered Asgore's question, finding his gaze tracking the flowing floral patterning above him again. He didn't particularly take much interest in the subject, despite the fact that he normally would have been both excited and worried by the topic. Any other day, he might have rushed headlong into a full investigation rather than simply speculating as to what the humans were actually doing. After the events of that morning however, he found that he had little inclination to do much of anything. Toriel cast a worried glance back to Asgore after a time, and it was only about when she looked as though she was going to say something that Gaster at last began to explain. His weak, rasping voice trailed through the air in a manner almost as unsettling as the ghost's droning ethereal lilt had been. And his spare set of hands flickered through another set of translations in tandem with his every word. _'If the humans are using ambient magical energy from the environment to charge the stones, it would explain how they have gained their newfound power. However, without further information I can only speculate as to how they have managed this. But... if this is the case, then the magic they are using has two crippling flaws that can be exploited easily enough. The first lies in the fact that gathering ambient magic takes time and a great deal of effort, seeing as how scattered it is by nature. The second flaw, lies in the stones themselves. Providing one were to separate the human in question from the esoteric stone in their possession, their magic would vanish completely... as though they had never gained it to begin with. The ideal way of disabling this new power... would be to shatter the gemstone in the human's possession, seeing as the stones themselves are relatively fragile compared to most other crystalline elements.'_

Asgore nodded to himself after Gaster's spare set of hands fell still again and he turned his attention to the ghost once more. There was a lot of uncertainty in everything his friend had said, but he was one of the greatest minds that the king had ever known. If he believed the humans were using esoteric stones to fuel their magic, then they most likely were. Gaster knew what he was doing almost all of the time, and it was an incredibly rare moment when ever the alchemist was proven wrong. With perhaps less hesitation than the sentry and ghost had been expecting, he addressed them sternly, the ghost first as he was the quicker of the two. "There is a small force en route to the town of Theon, they left early this evening and should be arriving there shortly. I do not care how you reach them or how many monsters you end up passing through on your way. But you must contact their commanding officer and warn them about the humans before they reach their destination. If the forces that have infiltrated the kingdom have so much as a single magic user among them, it is imperative that they are aware of how to disarm them."

The ghost shifted a bit uncomfortably at first before nodding quietly, a shifting ripple of movement that nearly bent his entire form in half. And without a word, he turned away to pass through the nearest wall. The sentry watched the transparent creature vanish for a moment and then straightened herself up as much as she could manage as she turned her gaze back to the king. To no surprise, Asgore was already prepared with another set of instructions... Ones that would make use of the feline creature's speed, agility and sharp eyes. Though he would have preferred to give the girl a chance to recover from her previous sprint, there was simply no time to loose. "There are numerous other units out there on their way to other towns located near human settlements. We need to get word to them before they find themselves facing this new threat. I want you to speak with commander Bulrag for a complete list of the routes and destinations of each unit. After that you are to scour the castle for as many ghosts as possible and you are to send them to find each detachment from the capital. Word of this new threat _**must**_ reach them _**before**_ they find themselves taken off guard by it."

The feline creature listened intently, her ears twitching slightly as a bit of the fear in her sparkling sapphire eyes was washed away by excitement. She gave a swift bow and uttered a few quick words before turning to begin her task. "Yes your majesty!" Hardly a breath's length of time passed between the two and the sentry was already gone, sprinting down the castle corridors on her way to the training yard. At that time of night, there was only one place commander Bulrag could have been. Toriel had watched worriedly while Asgore gave the two creatures their assignments, unable to help but think of the soldiers out in the field who had no idea what might be awaiting them. Gaster on the other hand, felt no more than a slight pull at his thoughts. The heavy darkness that wrapped around his soul weighed down and dulled the concern he should have had for the units of monsters rushing headlong towards danger. He had watched the king send the two creatures away, though he hadn't truly felt much more than a slight tug at his conscience... Some dull recollection that told him he had done the right thing by sharing what he knew with Asgore, though it was too distant a feeling for him to quite place.

Gaster was still loyal to the king, he still  felt compelled to be of assistance how and when ever he had the chance. But now.... he found that he could no longer quite recall what it had been that drove him to do so. He remembered that they were supposed to be friends, that he was supposed to feel some sort of deeper connection to him aside from simply duty. However, the dark feeling that protected him from his sorrow, didn't just isolate him from everything that would cause him pain. The darkness had nearly completely silenced his figurative heart. After a time, Toriel found her gaze drifting back to Gaster. The nagging worry that twisted at her heart and soul told her that something was gravely wrong when ever she lay eyes on the deadened expression that the skeleton now wore. She wanted desperately for him to be alright, she wanted nothing more than to see her worries be proved in vain. Still, she found her thoughts drawn to the jagged crack in Gaster's soul, and she couldn't help but worry that it was the cause for his withdrawn state.

Asgore hung back only a short while longer before he could finally force himself to approach the bed where the alchemist was resting. Somewhat hesitantly, he craned down to see Gaster past the curtain while Toriel held it open for him. A heavy sorrow twisted at the king's heart and soul when he at last saw the extent of the damage his friend had taken. The skeleton's remaining wounds might have been wrapped tightly in bandages, but so many different layers wouldn't have been necessary if the injuries weren't severe. And from the faint splotches of color barely visible underneath the cloth... he was still bleeding out magic over time in at least a small amount. What ever fear the king had for Gaster, he hid it well, never permitting more than an air of worry and concern to touch his features. After a brief pause he found the courage to speak, a distant and perhaps guilty nature to his words... As though he felt terrible that the skeleton had wasted even a small amount of his strength communicating with them. "I do not want you to worry about any of this for now, not until you have had time to rest and recover. You will not be helping anyone, least of all yourself, if you try to force your recovery... Or if you decide to resume work before it is safe for you to do so. You have likely saved a great deal of lives with what information you were able to give us. Please, rest for now."

Gaster stared up at the king for a great deal of time, another faint twinge of emotion passing into his thoughts before it was silenced again. Still, it was enough to convince him that Asgore had the right of things. With a silent nod, he cut off the flow of magic to his spare set of hands and the constructs fizzled out of existence again. Toriel seemed to relax somewhat when the constructs disappeared, and while she was still worried about Gaster... She was at least grateful that he had stopped wasting his strength. Asgore managed to offer the skeleton a faint smile before he straightened up again to turn his attention to Toriel. And he had only just begun to speak, when the queen rose a paw to silence him. "Tori-..." She glanced down at the skeleton out of the corner of her eye briefly before she dared to speak herself, almost as if she were worried that he would vanish entirely the moment she took her eyes off of him. "I will watch over him until he has regained some of his strength. I can have one of the servants fetch something for him to eat either once he feels he can, or after I feel he can no longer go without it...." Toriel trailed off somewhat, only managing a few more words before the nagging worry that dragged at her thoughts silenced her the moment Gaster closed his eye sockets to return to sleep. ".... which ever comes first...."

After several moments Asgore nodded solemnly and turned to leave, his gaze distant and sorrowful. He only hesitated for a moment before starting on his way out, his voice trailing behind him with a very evident note of regret weighing down his every word. "I shall start planning for the worst. If nothing else, the city must be prepared to house the remaining skeletons from The Woodlands of Cree when they arrive." Toriel didn't miss the guilt ridden nature of Asgore's words, and it was not as if she was going to leave things as they were. By the time her husband reached the doorway, she had already spoken quietly to him, a sorrowful note to her every word. "This is not your fault Asgore, you could not have known this was going to happen." The king's strides faltered for but a moment and he whisked out the door without another word, leaving Toriel with only a forlorn silence in return for her efforts to ease the weight on his soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off to any of you who are worried, no, 'Arun' is 'not' Toriel and Asgore's biological child.  
> More will be explained on that in Act 2.  
> Secondly. Congrats! You've made it to the end of Act 1, that means you 'didn't' just take one look at how long the chapters were and decide to close the page. ^^'


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Apathy!!!! Not sure if there's much else to say here. ^^'
> 
> Disclaimer: Undertale owned by Toby Fox

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**Act 2**  
**A Consuming Darkness**  
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**Chapter 5**

The next two and a half weeks passed relatively uneventfully for Gaster, though the kingdom itself saw much change in a shockingly short amount of time by monster standards. While he had been concerning himself with recovering from his shattered bones and healing the minor cracks that webbed through his soul... The remaining skeletons from The Woodlands of Cree arrived in the royal capital. A great number of the refugees suffered from injuries quite similar to Gaster's, though some had escaped the slaughter no worse for it. The other skeletons were being housed in an unused section of the city's barracks that had been built at some point during strained relations with the kingdom of Yilmar to the north. It had been meant to house a significant number of troops in the event that war broke out and the capital needed the extra room to train more soldiers to protect its citizens. Fortunately enough, the wrath of the barbarian king of the north died out over time and the misunderstanding had been resolved without bloodshed.  
  
What had once been a massive structure meant to house new recruits, now gave the relatively small number of refugees a place to shelter while their injuries were tended to. And every morning after they had arrived, Toriel made a point of giving Gaster small updates on how the other skeletons were settling in and recovering from the entire ordeal. She meant well obviously enough, though it didn't matter what her intentions were so long as he continued clinging to the dark feeling that suppressed his emotions. The queen had grown used to how quiet he had become, though she still worried for him constantly due to the distant and detached way he started behaving after Mistfall had been destroyed. Despite her fears for him however, she maintained a positive attitude when around her friend and refused to do anything that would hint at her worry. She was always smiling, offering what little comfort she was able to, hoping beyond hope that she could bring the life back to his gaze. And contrary to what she would have expected given the circumstances, Gaster hadn't refused any food brought to him or failed to finish any portions he had been given. It was a good sign, though he never once mentioned actually being hungry.  
  
He never asked for anything and never started conversations himself, often only bothering to speak once he had been spoken to. The alchemist rarely ever talked anymore, and usually it was only when Asgore visited that he showed any inclination to do anything more than stare at the canopy of cloth above him or out of the nearest window. Toriel had taken to keeping Gaster company after long enough despite the lengthy silences that often stood between them. It was her concerns for him that prompted her to keep an eye on her friend even after his strength had started to return, though she couldn't exactly be blamed. The fact that his nightmares only seemed to be getting worse certainly didn't help put her fears to rest. And the way he always seemed to recover so unnaturally quickly from the occurrences... only to dismiss them as _**just dreams...**_ was unsettling in and of itself. The third night of Gaster's stay in the castle saw an alarming change in the troubled nature of his sleep, just when Toriel was starting to get used to watching over him. It was roughly around then that the faint whimpers she had grown accustomed to hearing from her friend began to take a violent turn to him screaming in his sleep. The queen might have been able to take it in stride if that had been the worst of it. But along with the nightmares worsening, it had become almost impossible for her to wake him up in order to interrupt them. The most she was able to do to help her friend, was hold him still so he didn't hurt himself when he started tossing and turning in the middle of the night.  
  
After the first few nights of seeing these disturbing occurrences, Toriel found that she was less and less willing to leave him alone. In the end, she resolved to have one of the servants bring a rather comfortable rocking chair into the room and set it near the doorway so she could linger a tad longer every night. Asgore hadn't been too thrilled with the idea after the first time she had fallen asleep late at night while watching over Gaster, but he kept his concerns to himself. In truth he likely would have done something vastly similar if given the opportunity, though the king's time was very much in demand of late. Between arranging for more refugees from the kingdom's eastern lands to be given sanctuary within the walls of the capital, preparing the construction of proper refugee camps nearby, and of course organizing the kingdom's military force to deal with the infiltrators... Asgore found that he scarcely had time for much else. The humans hadn't stopped with the skeletons of Cree and had continued on to attack other skeleton clans further away from human civilization, as well as attacking any villages or towns of any kind they came across. A series of blockades had been set up along the kingdom's eastern trade routes and yet it seemed to have done no good in slowing them down.  
  
Casualties continued to mount and day by day their eastern border seemed to be shrinking. Guard towers and outposts that had stood for hundreds of years went silent and there simply weren't enough eyes around the kingdom for Asgore to send anyone to check on them. Ghosts without corporeal forms became a common spectacle seen coming and going from the castle or drifting across the kingdom in both the dead of night and in the middle of the day. They had become the most efficient and safe method of spreading news throughout the kingdom, the most reliable creatures that could be given messages. And yet even with so many ghosts acting as messengers throughout the country, there had been no word from the previous king. It would have seemed as though Theril had made no efforts to contact Asgore despite the uncertain state of the kingdom, even if it was simply to let him know that he was alright. This in addition to everything else, meant that it hadn't taken much convincing from his court ministers for the king to begin preparing the beginnings of a system of intelligence gathering both within and outside of the kingdom. Choosing those best suited for the tasks of ferrying messages, watching key locations within the kingdom and infiltrating enemy lines hadn't been that difficult. Already Asgore had begun compiling a list of the most suitable creatures to take on these duties, the ghosts, and the spiderkin among them. His days were now split between war meetings, political speculation and the ever complicated task of trying to root out the human raiders while at least trying to keep their borders secure... And then of course... There was the task of trying to prevent panic from spreading within the kingdom.  
  
That in and of itself had been its own struggle, one that required Asgore to take measures he rather wouldn't have resorted to even in such grim times. Too soon after the attacks had started, he had been forced to pass a royal decree that disagreed with him nearly as much as it did every human to call the monster kingdom their home. The king had been forced to proclaim that all humans without a family history of peaceful coexistence within the kingdom dating back more than two hundred years, were to be deported and returned to the lands of their origin. It had been something he himself hadn't wanted to see made necessary, and it certainly wasn't an understatement to say that those who weren't eligible to remain were absolutely infuriated with the royal decree. Unfortunately, if war was inevitable with the kingdom of Clarion, it would have been unwise to let them remain. As it stood, many of the native citizens of the royal capital had been unhappy with the decision to allow any humans at all to remain within the walls of the city. Fortunately enough, the proclamation had eased enough tensions that the humans who could stay were able to go on with their lives as true citizens of the monster kingdom. Those who didn't qualify were given notice and assisted in the packing of their personal effects with the utmost civility. No measure of bitterness or hostility would change the fact that it was necessary for them to leave, and with the king himself overseeing many of the more sensitive cases.... no guard was foolish enough to loose their temper. Many who didn't even need to leave found themselves packing up to follow friends or lovers back across the border, some families even fragmenting over the entire situation. Houses stood vacant and human owned stores that had once been thriving closed down when the owners had to leave. Those who remained said their goodbyes to those who could not. And despite everything, the human citizens who stayed found themselves continuing on with their lives without holding the new decree against Asgore. Troubled times were brewing and everyone knew that much at least, it was only to be expected that difficult choices would need to be made.  
  
Normally by the time the king had finished his list of duties, he found that it was well past time for him to simply retire for the evening. It was a truly rare occurrence when he found the time to visit Gaster. And for all that he was worth, he wished he could have seen his friend more frequently to be certain of his recovery. Still, the fact that the kingdom would fall apart without his guidance was a truth that Asgore couldn't escape. And he cared for all of the creatures who resided within it far more than words alone could say. Every time news of another attack reached the king, he found himself organizing more and more counter measures and hunting parties. But after the first group of raiders had been found and dealt with, the humans had grown increasingly difficult to find and confront. Morale among the troops fell after the brief skirmish thanks to the number of casualties it had involved, and doubt whispered through their ranks like poison. It didn't help that none of the monsters who survived the battle had reported seeing a single magic user among the human invaders. Many of the newer and younger soldiers were starting to doubt that they could handle a confrontation with a human wielding magic if ordinary human warriors were already causing so much damage. And as much as Asgore hated to admit it... It was starting to look more and more like they were being dragged into a full scale war with every day that passed. It was only to be expected that Toriel never found the opportunity to speak with him about the traces of powerful magic she had detected while tending to their friend.  
  
One morning when Toriel returned to the guest quarters where Gaster had been resting, she found to her horror that he had actually gotten out of bed. He stood near the window, for the moment watching while a number of the less injured skeletons sparred together in the rear courtyard of the barracks. He hadn't been too distracted to hear her when she entered, and it was not as if he could have missed her sharp intake of breath when she saw him standing. For what was the first time in perhaps weeks, he actually chanced to start a conversation himself and summoned his spare set of hands to translate for him. Gaster didn't bother turning to look at the queen for even a moment, though something faint within him felt as though he should have at least made an effort towards greeting her properly. That feeling was unfortunately not enough to influence him very much, and instead Gaster simply continued to watch the other skeletons about their business. His voice trailed through the air with what was by now a familiar and yet still unsettlingly brisk manner, a distracted note to his every word. _'I am merely trying to prevent stiffness from setting in. I have been lying in the same if not a vastly similar position for nearly a full three weeks now. If I do not move at some point there is a possibility of my joints locking in place. And if that happens we will have a much worse problem to deal with than a number of broken bones.'_  
  
Even after reading through the translation her friend had provided it still took the queen several seconds to relax. It was with a defeated sigh that she quietly paced over to Gaster and stood beside him. She followed his gaze towards the other skeletons and couldn't help but wonder just why he was watching them, hoping for the best. Everything was strictly business to the alchemist these days, as though he didn't care for anything in particular anymore... or so it seemed. When ever he spoke in his now rather matter of fact way, Toriel was reminded all too grimly of his withdrawn state. She had often seen him staring out the window while he was resting, but he never really seemed to focus on one detail in particular during the time he had been in the guest wing... At least, until now. After a brief moment's hesitation she dared to speak and glanced back to Gaster with a soft note hovering about in her voice. "You are worried about them... Not that I can blame you..." Her comment sent another faint twinge of emotion through the alchemist's thoughts, only for it to be swept away again mere moments later by the darkness within him. It hadn't been there for very long, but it had been enough to at the very least convince him that there was a point in continuing their conversation. His spare set of hands shifted faintly in the air at a measured half their typical opacity, seeing as Gaster hadn't really seen a reason to put more magic into making them.  
  
Transparent as they were, the faint forms of the constructs seemed to work well enough when they shifted through a number of familiar gestures to translate him for the queen. There had been a time when he might have spared the magic and just signed with his actual hands, but after his collar bone had been shattered and partially mended... It had proved rather painful to try doing so, and so he abstained in favor of using his magic to communicate. _'I do not even know them, my queen. I have merely been observing. It is odd that they practice in this manner. If you pay attention to the one on the left, you will notice he is favoring his left arm despite an obvious lack of finesse in the use of his right. He is likely left handed, yet is forgoing his dominant arm in favor of one he is far less accustomed to. This suggests that there is a strain somewhere along its length that has likely gone unnoticed by the healers attending the refugees. The one on the right has a slight stutter in his step every time he takes a sudden shift to the left, suggesting that there is something wrong with his left leg... or at the very least a number of his ribs on the left side have been damaged and are distracting him.'_  
  
Gaster had been putting nearly all of his focus until that point towards recovering, which Toriel supposed was a good thing... But it seemed as though he was growing no less withdrawn even with his body healing. She wasn't really surprised by the offhanded and unconcerned manner in which he had been speaking or the detached nature of the translation. Nor was taken off guard by the fact that the lights in his eye sockets never once deviated from the task of watching the other skeletons practicing swordplay. While the queen was still greatly concerned for Gaster, she couldn't help but begin to watch them as he was. And over time she began to see the subtle things that her friend had pointed out to her. It surprised and irritated Toriel far more than she would have expected when she realized he was right about the two. They shouldn't have been out practicing, they should have been resting and taking the time to heal. This only brought up more questions as far as she was concerned however, and none of them were in regards to the conduct of the refugees. A rather tense breath escaped her after a few moments and she glanced somewhat warily at Gaster out of the corner of her eye, suspicion driving her onward. "You noticed all of that from this far away without even looking for it?"  
  
For a short while, Gaster fell deathly silent and a certain distant thoughtfulness marked his gaze. In truth he didn't even know why he was bothering to watch them, or at least he didn't remember why he was. As far as he could recall it had only been out of habit when he had begun to pick out the signs of injury among the two sparring partners. Another faint twinge of emotion slipped past his thoughts, the shadowed feeling within him blocking out enough of it that he didn't quite recognize what it meant. Still, it had been enough to convince him that it would have been a mistake to tell Toriel what he thought were his reasons behind watching them. And much as it disagreed with some distant part of himself... he redirected the conversation, his spare set of hands following through with a quick translation for his friend. _'I am a doctor as well as an alchemist. If I could not see the signs of a patient concealing an injury, then I suppose I would need to relinquish that title.'_ To say the least, his answer was disappointing to Toriel and that would have been the understatement of the century. She sighed softly, finding that Gaster's comment did little to ease her worries for him, despite or perhaps because of the rationality of his argument. A few brief moments of hesitation stood between them while she thought of what to say, a certain familiar heaviness weighing down her heart and soul. Eventually, she simply decided that there would be little point in trying to get him to admit that he actually _**did**_ care about them. She could have argued with him until the sun set and it wouldn't have been enough with him being the way he was now. Thankfully enough, she did manage to keep her disappointment from reaching her voice... though a somewhat distracted note worked its way into her words never the less. "I suppose that is true... I shall see about sending another team of healers to relieve their current caretakers."  
  
It wasn't too surprising that Gaster's only response was a quiet nod, nor was it unexpected that his gaze never wandered from the two combatants for so much as a moment. If one thing remained a constant in his detached state, it seemed to be that once his gaze fell on something, it didn't move without a definite reason. The distant nature to his expression remained just as hollow as ever and a heavy silence hung between the two friends like dense fog. It felt impenetrable, suffocating and disheartening to the queen. When ever she found that her friend had lapsed into another silence like this, she felt as though she were looking at a complete stranger... As though, he had become someone that she had never known and would never get the chance to know. The thought that someone she had once known and cared for so deeply could change so quickly sent a prickling chill up her arms and down her back. There wasn't so much as a shadow of the skeleton he had once been, at least not that Toriel could have seen. He should have been in mourning, he should have been showing obvious signs of grief if nothing else. Instead... Gaster just seemed empty. It was as though his body had survived but nothing of him remained to shelter within it... as though, he wasn't even really there. The queen found herself watching her friend more than the sparring skeletons in the barracks courtyard, and if nothing else it was fortunate that she had been.  
  
Seemingly out of nowhere, Gaster's distant gaze refocused abruptly and the glow in his eye sockets shifted for merely an instant to a bright yellow. The sparks faded all too soon back to their default white color, but it wasn't as if the shift could have been easily missed. The cause of this occurrence, was what had happened in the barracks courtyard just after Toriel turned her gaze from the skeletons practicing there. Gaster had been watching the sparring partners passively, honestly finding that he didn't care what they did with themselves. That was of course until the one with the limp failed a parry and the weakness in his step caused him to miss his chance to dodge the coming strike. For one soul jerking moment the other skeleton tried to pull back before he could follow through with the attack, only to fail due to his inexperience leading with his right. In a terrible twist of misfortune, the skeleton with the limp took the strike on his bad side and crumpled to the ground not a moment later. Even the darkness that surrounded the alchemist's soul couldn't have erased the unexpected jolt of fear and concern that passed through him, nor the sudden tenseness that locked his every joint. He was rooted in place by the occurrence for what at that moment felt like the longest few seconds of his life, the spark of emotion burning away at the darkness violently and destructively. _**It hurt, gods that be it was agony!**_ It felt as though someone had driven a blade into the center of his soul and was slowly forcing it deeper into the crack that still remained. Gaster stopped breathing and though it only lasted an instant, it still felt like an eternity to him before the darkness was able to rush back in and save him from it.  
  
By some miracle the alchemist managed to hide most of the occurrence from Toriel, whether intentionally or subconsciously he couldn't have been certain. But it was still enough to bring her to refocus her gaze on the two sparring partners in the barracks courtyard. Aside from the momentary lapses when ever her friend was suffering from his nightmares and the brief aftermaths of those unsettling occurrences.... This was the first time that the sparks in his eye sockets had shifted color since the destruction of Mistfall, the first time he had actually shown visible signs of actually feeling something. She should have found some measure of relief in it, but when her gaze fell upon the two sparring partners again... Gaster's current state couldn't have been farther from her thoughts. The more fortunate of the two knelt beside his friend while the other was lying on the ground grasping his side as if in pain, and even from this distance they could see the red glow that flickered away from the injured skeleton's eye sockets. Toriel for one, most certainly hadn't been expecting it and the sight succeeded in dragging a startled gasp from her with little difficulty. The sudden rigidness that swept over the queen wasn't something easily missed, and it seemed as though she were about to turn and hurry down to the courtyard herself at that very moment. Fortunately enough, before she could so much as move, the skeleton who could still walk was already hurrying back inside the building.  
  
Even with as far away as Toriel and Gaster were, they could still hear indistinct shouting from the barracks when the skeleton went to get help. And it was only a few tense seconds before a number of healers burst free of the massive structure and hurried over to their charge. There hardly seemed a moment's pause between when they arrived and when they started stripping off the armor he had been wearing for the training exercise. And the queen found herself holding her breath while the seconds trickled by, the wait proving almost as unbearable for her as it should have been for her friend. With the shadows again persistently holding his emotions at bay however, the alchemist was watching the scene unfold through a much more objective lens. The injured skeleton in question was still reacting to the healers in a reasonable manner as near as he could have seen. They were permitted to help him despite the fact that he obviously didn't lack the strength to resist, if one were to judge based on how he had been practicing just moments ago. As far as Gaster could tell there was no cause for alarm, though some distant corner of his soul twitched and writhed at the fact that he was just standing there watching. Something faint stirred within the alchemist, persistently arguing that he should have been concerned. He should have been upset that the accident had happened at all, but the faint twitch at his thoughts wasn't enough to really influence him much.  
  
It was only after the injured skeleton's chest plate had been removed and the healers set to work that Toriel finally relaxed and let out a pent up breath. Much like her friend, she was able to pick up on the fact that there was no note of urgency to their actions. And though they had brought medical supplies with them... It didn't seem as though the healers needed any bandages or splinting to see to their patient this time. The queen was more than just slightly relieved by the way it all played out, glad that the healers had responded properly to the incident. She was completely unaware of it when Gaster turned away from the scene and started to make his way over to one of the chairs in the center of the room, silent as a ghost. Despite his injured state, he made no noise that might have alerted her to his actions in the slightest... though it was less of a feat when one considered how light skeletons typically were. Even the largest of their kind often weighed no more than a child of nearly any other race, though it was just as much to their detriment as it was to their advantage. It wasn't too surprising that the queen was too absorbed by the happenings in the barracks courtyard to notice at first when her friend had stopped watching. As a matter of fact, the surprise that swept over her when she tried to return her attention to Gaster was only to be expected. As far as she had known, he had still been standing at the window with her and she had fully expected him to still be there... only to find that he was no longer at her side.  
  
Naturally, Toriel turned to look for him, only to flinch when she caught sight of her friend sitting at the table in the middle of the room. An involuntary shiver passed through her and she found that she had to take several moments to steady herself again. She wasn't used to him actually _**moving**_ in addition to being as quiet as he had been for the past two and a half weeks... And as much as the queen hated to admit it, it was unsettling. After she was certain that she had regained her composure, she paced over to the seat opposite her friend and sat down lightly while she tried to push away her worries for the time being. There had been a spark of the person Gaster once was when he had seen one of his clansmen harmed, she had seen it, she was certain of that much. And she wasn't about to let the small spark of hope slip away from her now that it had revealed itself. As desperate as it seemed, Toriel grasped at the opportunity like a drowning man to the promise of salvation in the hopes of helping her friend recover in one of the only ways she saw how. Even if it was only briefly, she was going to try prompting him into visiting them. It was clear enough to the queen that nothing she said or did was going to be enough to get through to him on its own, he needed to be around those of his own race. He needed to see that there was hope for the future even if Mistfall was gone, he needed to be comforted by someone who knew the same pain he felt. The only problem, was figuring out how to go about it.  
  
At present, reaching out to Gaster in any meaningful way was difficult to say the least and at that very moment he seemed to be lost in thought yet again. Toriel had seen the distant thoughtfulness that marked his gaze far too many times since he had nearly been killed. And the way he always seemed to stare off at nothing in particular during those all too prevalent moments of silence, certainly didn't make approaching him any easier. Unknown to the queen however, her friend wasn't thinking of much in particular just then. In all honesty, he had taken Asgore's request that he _**not worry about any of this**_ a tad too literally. For the moment, Gaster intended to focus on nothing more than recovering so he could resume his work immediately after he could find the opportunity. In his current state moving at all was still a chore, though his bones were sturdy enough to at least support movement so long as he was careful not to strain his lingering injuries. His bones were mending steadily but slowly and the key word there was slowly, it would be some time before he had his full range of motion again. Though the alchemist didn't really have much he wanted to say for himself, he still left his spare set of hands floating in the air a distance behind him in the inevitable event that Toriel wanted to say something to him. Already Gaster had distanced himself from what had occurred in the barracks courtyard, though a faint pull at his conscience said something about the way he was reacting wasn't right. In all honesty, the momentary lapse he had felt when the other skeleton was hurt had been painful enough without him dwelling on it. And despite the fact that some part of him thought it was wrong, he found himself pushing the occurrence aside.  
  
It took Toriel a lot longer than she would have liked to think about how she was going to approach the situation. And while she was still nervous by the time she chanced to speak, she still continued on rather stubbornly. "You were right in what you said earlier.... And I am aware of the fact that you have never been particularly fond of focusing on only one thing for very long..." There was an unmistakable softness to the queen's voice even before she intentionally trailed off in the hopes of prompting some kind of response from Gaster. She wanted to coax him into action rather than needing to prod him towards it if she could help it. It would only serve to help him more if he actually made the decision to go see his clansmen himself instead of her forcing him into it. For the moment her plan seemed to be working, if nothing else it proved enough to get her friend to turn his gaze back to her. Something faint had stirred within the alchemist when Toriel had mentioned his restless nature, something twitched inside his weakened soul. There was still a part of him that wanted to be working right then, to be making use of himself rather than wasting the days lying around doing a whole lot of nothing while he healed. Gaster had known the queen long enough to recognize when she was trying to lead him along a trail of thought. And thankfully, the distant compulsion itching at the corners of his mind was more than enough for him to let her.  
  
Toriel was much more relieved than she would have expected when her friend began to speak, fully thrilled by the sight of his spare set of hands flicking through a relatively short translation for her. _'Where are you going with this?'_ It was a struggle for the queen to hide the smile that threatened to twitch at the corners of her lips when she stood again to offer the alchemist her paw. But for his sake, she managed to conceal the sense of victory dancing through her when she spoke next. "I suggest we take a short walk. It would be unfortunate if your joints started to stiffen, as you said. And, while you may not be able to resume work as you wish... I imagine you will have no trouble educating the healers in how to **_properly_** tend to those in their care." It was an excuse surely enough, and Gaster had no trouble recognizing it as such. It was too obvious to him that Toriel was just trying to get him to visit his clansmen, to see them and interact with them in some form or another. If not for the painful twinge that passed through his soul at the prospect of seeing them, he might have refused. But even after the shadows had closed in around his soul again to rescue him from it, the feeling still lingered on as an almost irresistible pull. It compelled him to rise slowly and accept the queen's paw despite the fact that his actions had no grounding in solid logic. And the dim feeling brought him to speak in a somewhat offhanded manner while his gaze wandered about the room. _'His majesty shall be rather distressed should he return to find neither of us here.'_  
  
The translation only served to draw a soft laugh from Toriel while she guided Gaster back to the guest bed, though it wasn't as if what he said was untrue. Despite the fact that he didn't really need it, the alchemist found his friend helping him sit down on the edge of the bed so she could collect his repaired clothing from the bedside table. He found himself watching her while she inspected the two garbs carefully and brought them back over to him so she could help him slip into his tunic. It was a difficult task considering his injuries, and it wasn't at all surprising how long it seemed to take. The queen took it as an opportunity to comment on what he had said while they cautiously worked together to maneuver the cloth in an attempt to avoid the possibility of irritating his damaged bones. The mild amusement that danced through her voice wasn't exactly unexpected, though it still sent something faint twitching within his soul. "I am certain he shall be fine. There are a great many things he has need to worry for these days. However... so long as you are with me, your well being is not one of them. And he is well aware of that." There was a familiar laughter glittering in the depths of Toriel's eyes and a familiar smile seemed to twitch at the corners of her lips. And despite the faint something that seemed to twitch at his thoughts, he found that he could only nod quietly in silent agreement when they finally finished slipping his tunic into place. For a short time, Gaster simply straightened his tunic and examined the repaired section somewhat critically, though his expression didn't change at all. He could barely even tell that it had been damaged, and some distant part of him wasn't entirely alright with that. Still, it hid the bandages his damaged bones were still bound in well enough that he doubted that he would need his alchemist's coat. And after a brief glance at the other garb, he found that he didn't really have any inclination to wear it. As it stood, Toriel didn't seem fond of the idea of trying to step him through the process of putting it on either with his lingering injuries getting in the way.  
  
A brief silence stood between the two friends in which time both simply stared at the alchemist coat and neither of them made any move to touch it. The quiet fortunately didn't last too horribly long this time before Gaster found himself speaking and he started to force himself into motion. The by now familiar jabs of pain that shot through his spine and rib cage when ever he decided to move were becoming less and less troubling, easier to ignore. He was starting to get used to the physical suffering his injuries caused him, and some faint part of him was grateful for the fact it wasn't going to last forever. _'The coat will only get in the way with my current condition. It would be best to leave it behind.'_ The queen nodded quietly in agreement after watching her friend's spare set of hands flick through a translation for her and after a moment she again offered him her paw. It didn't take hardly any effort for her to help him stand after he had accepted her help, though she still had to measure herself very carefully around Gaster while he healed. His HP had slowly started to improve with time, but it was still far from being enough to allow her to relax... he was still far from being healed. It would be quite some time before he would be able to move freely on his own again and she knew that well enough. In the meantime, Toriel would just need to keep a careful eye on him to make sure nothing else went wrong before he could recover. Normally, she wouldn't have been too worried about it taking him so long to heal. But in addition to the severity of his injuries, she had all too worriedly taken note of the fact that her friend's maximum HP had actually dropped after the incident. She couldn't have been certain by how much, after all she had only seen Gaster's stats a scant few times before then. But she certainly knew that he should have had more than what was showing up when ever she looked, and she certainly knew that it wasn't a good sign.  
  
Under any other circumstances, the alchemist might have tried to convince Toriel that all of the worrying she was doing was unreasonable. But unfortunately, at present he just didn't care enough to try... and when they left the room, he simply dismissed his spare set of hands. It was too obvious to him that she wouldn't calm down until after he had healed, and nothing he said or did would make any difference to her. He had known the queen long enough to be certain of that much at least. The actual walk to the barracks themselves where his clansmen were being given shelter, was far harder on Gaster than he ever would have willingly admitted. They were forced into a slow pace that was little more than a shamble due to his condition and each step seemed to grow smaller, less certain than the last. It was true that he needed to move around, but at the same time it was far more exercise than he had been ready for. Even with Toriel carefully watching her friend and making sure that he wasn't straining himself, he was still completely exhausted by the time they approached the massive structure. And though he hid it well, she could hardly miss how dim and lifeless the white sparks in his eye sockets had become. He needed to stop and rest for a while, and something to eat wouldn't have hurt either. In all honesty he had started to feel light headed even before they reached the doors to the barracks, before his friend had even began to carefully push them open. It was as if his bones were weighted down with lead and there was no ignoring how horribly drained he felt.  
  
He was tired, and despite the dark feeling that encompassed his soul... he was scared. Gaster wasn't sure if he was ready to see what was left of his clan, or the tattered condition that a great number of them were certain to be suffering from. It was the most that he had felt aside from his nightmares since Mistfall had been destroyed, and it left a pulsating... almost numbing pain in his soul that only served to add to the exhaustion dragging at his bones. The shadowing weight in his soul dimmed the uncomfortable sensation just enough for him to bear it, just enough that he could force himself to put one foot in front of the other when Toriel guided him into the structure. And the sight that greeted them was so unexpected that he wasn't entirely certain how to react to it, much less in his exhausted state. Rather than the dismal air that should have been pervading the space, the barracks housed a rather sanguine atmosphere. Friends and the fragmented pieces of shattered families chattered softly to one another in soft murmurs. Gentle smiles and cautious hopes flickered across every face and danced in every set of eye sockets that could have been seen. And while the refugees wore what ever clothing they had possessed prior to the massacres that ripped apart their homes, few if any had lingering traces of spilled magic on them. From where they were, Gaster could make out a relatively small team of healers that threaded silently around scattered clusters of those well enough to move.  
  
Those tending to the refugees did their best to avoid intruding or interrupting while they wove among those confined to bed and constantly checked on the worst cases, tending to them where it was needed. There were a great number of wounded who were still in just as sorry a state as the alchemist was, though for the most part the others seemed to be keeping careful watch over them and lifting their spirits where ever possible. Even those confined to bed didn't seem overly concerned with the miserable states they had been left in, an air of peace about them as the watched their remaining clansmen converse with one another. Gaster hesitated in the presence of it, he had forgotten the way that every grim reality of the world seemed to fall away when Cree skeletons gathered together. It was subdued, muted and dulled, but there was still a familiar and carefree nature to the scene before them. It reached out to him, settled a painful throbbing ache into his soul and beckoned to him in an odd way. Toriel couldn't have missed when her friend came to a halt, and it wasn't as if she could have overlooked the hesitation that marked his gaunt form. She saw the uncertainty that twitched at his skeletal features, even if it only lasted for barely an instant before he was able to smooth it away again.  
  
Their presence was not left unnoticed for very long, though it did very little to disturb the surreal scene before them. It wasn't really surprising though... Toriel had, after all, visited the refugees herself nearly every day since their arrival. To most of the survivors it had become a common occurrence, and while many of them offered her welcoming smiles or respectful nods... none of them seemed unsettled by her presence. It was out of a distant cluster of refugees that a single female skeleton in the tattered deep green tabard of a town guard approached them and swept into an energetic bow. She spoke to the queen rather pleasantly for the time being, even as she straightened back up again with a gentle grin spreading across her skeletal features. "No matter how many times you visit, it is always an honor to greet you my queen-..." It only took her a few moments to notice Gaster, though when she did she most certainly ended up trailing off. The spark of yellow that overtook her eye sockets was impossible to miss, as was the worry that washed away what ever joy there had been to her expression. The female skeleton didn't have any trouble picking out the subtle signs of exhaustion plaguing the alchemist despite his efforts to hide them, and she was most certainly troubled by the dim appearance of the lights in his eye sockets. She froze for what was only a few brief seconds while she struggled to find her voice, though when she did there was a quiet and soft spoken nature to her every word. ".... And you must be Gaster.... please, sit down. You look samded."  
  
The former guard cautiously stepped aside and motioned to a vacant seat near an empty bed, offering Gaster a strained smile for the moment. It didn't matter how much she tried to make it look heartfelt, in the end her worry caused it to come out pinched and halfhearted anyway. At any other time, he might have wondered exactly how the other skeleton knew his name... but right about then he was too exhausted to think about anything for very long. In all honesty, he had barely even registered the other skeleton's words by the time Toriel began to guide him at a shambling gait towards the bed she had pointed out to them. The lightheadedness that plagued him had long passed the point of bearable and before long been replaced by an indistinct fuzzy feeling that lingered at the edges of his awareness. Neither the queen nor the former guard were quite surprised when Gaster only managed another few steps before his legs gave out underneath him. Though, the other skeleton proved far more prepared to catch him than Toriel had been. Regardless, the unexpected contact still sent white hot needles of pain tearing through his rib cage and spine... which prompted a gasp and a pained hiss from the alchemist despite his best efforts to conceal his discomfort. Crimson light danced unsteadily inside of his eye sockets and he found himself trying to suppress the glow despite the circumstances. _**When had he started hiding how much he was suffering?**_ He couldn't have been certain of that himself anymore, he wasn't sure about anything right about then. And after a short while, the glow in his eye sockets just seemed to peeter out on its own. The other skeleton managed to get Gaster to the empty bed without irritating his injuries too much thanks to Toriel's help, and together the two of them settled him down with as much care as could be managed. By that point he had still been conscious and vaguely aware of his surroundings, but he had already started drifting off again from the moment he felt the cot underneath him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those of you who were wondering Samded is an archaic or old fashioned way of saying half dead.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: See previous chapter.... not going to lie... he's going to be like that for a while...
> 
> Disclaimer: Undertale owned by Toby Fox

**Chapter 6**

Gaster wasn't unconscious for very long this time, just long enough to miss the mild panic that his minor collapse had prompted from a majority of the other survivors. Thankfully, by the time he started waking up again, everyone seemed to have calmed down somewhat... Though a number of the refugees who had lost family in Mistfall still lingered nearby. They murmured softly to one another and cast wary glances his way every now and then. Their voices were too quiet for him to quite make out what they were saying, but he could still vaguely hear them muttering back and forth to one another. _**That**_ , only lasted a short while longer before the skeleton that greeted them ushered the others away with a harsh clip in her voice. "That is enough! We all lost someone! Take your gossip elsewhere!" She honestly hadn't sounded angry, but the sternness that laced her every word seemed enough to disperse them... if nothing else, the muttering stopped. The lights in Gaster's eye sockets finally flickered to life after the haze clouding his thoughts cleared enough for him to remember how his enchanted vision actually worked in the first place, and after a few moments the world slowly came back into focus around him. He should have been concerned by the fact that he actually had to think about it to force the sparks in his eye sockets back to life, a part of him actually was mildly concerned about it. But at present something else was distracting him from any thoughts he might have had regarding his condition.  
  
The first thing that came to his attention when he finally came around was that Toriel wasn't anywhere to be seen, apparently having left some time after he had lost consciousness. For some reason it seemed to bother him more than the rest of her absences over the past two and a half weeks, though he wasn't exactly sure why that was. Honestly, he was still completely out of sorts even after waking up, though it wasn't as if he could have been blamed. The brief nap had helped his condition if only by a small bit, but he was still too exhausted to make any sense of the mixed array of feelings that thrummed around dimly in his injured soul. It manifested as a persistent ache in the center of his chest, though he supposed that the cracks in his sternum didn't help with that in the least... especially when one considered that being caught had probably irritated his injuries more than just slightly. Gaster would have preferred a little bit of time to find something even remotely resembling coherence. Unfortunately, as it was... he most certainly wouldn't be getting it. The former guard noticed that he had awoken long before he could even begin to put his thoughts in order, and all things considered... it wasn't exactly surprising that she didn't remain silent. It might have been that she sensed his confusion or it might have been that she was simply trying to keep him from worrying about the queen's absence. Regardless of what it was, she didn't hesitate to speak up and interrupt his inner conflicts. "Lady Toriel left to have the castle servants fetch you something to eat. You know... you really should try not to force yourself so much. I am certain she would have permitted you to rest if only you had asked."  
  
The blank stare that Gaster turned to the other skeleton wouldn't have phased Toriel at all after the past few weeks she had spent with him... unfortunately... she wasn't Toriel. A dim yellow glow flickered to life in her eye sockets and a frown slowly twitched at his skeletal features when he caught sight of it. With the condition of his soul and the dark feeling he had been clinging to, he may have just ignored her comment at any other time. But being surrounded by his remaining clansmen had peeled away just enough of the numbing weight that he actually saw reason to react. More than that however, somewhere among the jumbled emotions that pulsed dimly in his soul... he thought he recognized something resembling guilt. It wasn't hard to imagine that his collapse had caused a great deal of worry to the queen, and his soul ached at the thought of causing her any more distress. Aside from that there was also the woman watching over him now, and while he didn't really know her... Gaster still felt faintly ashamed of the fact that he had collapsed right in front of her and needed her help to reach the cot. It had hardly been a good first impression if one were to put it mildly, nor had it been very considerate or gentlemanly of him either... even if he couldn't have helped it.  
  
It wasn't until the other skeleton was starting to wonder if he was ever going to dignify her comment with a response, that he finally ordered his thoughts enough to decide he would actually speak with her. His voice felt rough in his chest and came out hoarse despite his best efforts, though he assumed it had to have something to do with the strain being caught had put on his ribs. _'The thought had never crossed my mind.'_ The fact that Gaster had chosen to speak at all came as a surprise to the former guard, though given the circumstances it was certainly a pleasant one. It actually took her a few seconds to realize that he had bothered answering her at all and she blinked when she recognized the familiar chiming tones of their native language, a small smile working its way across her jaw. She shifted into the same habit almost subconsciously and took a moment to enjoy the familiarity of it, even if it was considered rude to speak in a manner that those of other races couldn't understand. It was a small piece of normalcy for a change, and with everything that had happened lately it was a welcome distraction. _'I do believe the queen said something about your mind wandering as of late. Though, in your current state it would be dangerous if you did not make an effort of reigning yourself in.'_  
  
The alchemist's frown only grew more severe as the other skeleton spoke, but she was already trilling on in their native tongue again before he could even think to respond. The glow in her eye sockets faded back into a familiar white from the yellow that had overtaken them and over time her smile grew more pleasant, more heartfelt. _'My name is Arial. It is only fair I share it with you, seeing as Lady Toriel has already given me yours. I am the one who has been placed in charge of our clansmen for the time being, a temporary representative if you will... seeing as I led the most successful resistance effort against the humans...'_ The pleasantness in Arial's voice died out towards the end of what she had to say and the glow shuddered out of her eye sockets rather abruptly. A sorrowful shadow crept across her face and her smile faded quietly, a certain grimness slinking into the air around them. Her voice was decidedly quieter and more subdued when she continued, but she didn't say very much before she simply trailed off again. _'Though.... I would hardly call fifty survivors a success...'_  
  
There was a painful twinge from somewhere in Gaster's soul at the sight of Arial blaming herself for being unable to protect her home town from the raid that had swept through it. It wasn't right, she should have been proud that she managed to save even a few skeletons after the fighting started... and a full fifty of their clansmen? If every attack had been like the one that silenced Mistfall, she had done the impossible by guiding them through it. He honestly didn't even realize what he was doing until after he had already spoken, and by that point it was far too late for him to take back any of what he said. _'It is more than could be said of Mistfall. I could not even protect myself when the humans came.'_ What ever he had meant to accomplish by saying... _**that**_ , he couldn't have been sure. But something faint within him said that the result certainly wasn't what he had been looking for. Arial simply stared at Gaster for a long while after hearing what he had to say and the lights in her eye sockets slowly started to return over the course of the next minute or so. It took her a very long time to think of anything she could have said in response to that and in all honesty she was more than just slightly ashamed of herself. She had managed to protect no less than eight of her closest friends and most trusted comrades in the chaos of the attack... as well as rallying a number of others to fight against the planned extermination of her own home town. Gaster was the only survivor from Mistfall, aside from him there was simply no one left from the woodland hollow that had once been regarded as the pride and joy of their clan.  
  
Guilt swept over Arial and shadowed her skeletal features for the most part, a hollow ache settling into her soul. The silence only lasted a short while longer before she managed a small apology, though it looked as if she felt about three times worse than she had before... Which she without a question did. _'Forgive me, I was not thinking... Mistfall... I still can not quite believe it is gone... What even... what even happened?'_ For what ever answers she hoped to find, Gaster could only shake his skull lightly in response. To say the least, the painful twinge that shot through his skull in response to the gesture... discouraged him from moving much after that. It wasn't very common for their kind to develop headaches, but if one out of every six thousand skeletons was bound to develop enough of an imbalance in their magical field to acquire one... It seemed only natural that it would be him. With an exhausted sigh he brought a hand to his skull and closed his eye sockets while he rubbed his temples in an effort to dull the ache. In the meantime he allowed his mind to wander back to the morning of the attack, though something told him he shouldn't have been indulging her. Thinking about the loss of every other skeleton in Mistfall wasn't something he did very often, though it wasn't as if he didn't have good reason to distance himself from what happened. Gaster had lost his mother and father at a very young age and he never had any siblings to begin with. The rest of the clan... or at least the other skeletons of Mistfall, had pretty much raised him themselves in their place.  
  
They hadn't just been his clansmen. They had been his family, the center of his entire world... and now, they were gone. Gaster managed to suppress a gasp when the jagged crack in his soul gave a sudden painful throb, though he couldn't quite stop the small pinched groan that escaped him afterward. Unfortunately, Arial didn't have any trouble noticing the small sound that found its way free of him. Over the course of the past few weeks, she had been spending quite a lot of time keeping an eye socket on their clansmen... plenty of whom enjoyed hiding their discomforts to ease the pressure on her. In that time, she had grown quite adept at noticing the subtle signs of pain that even a trained warrior couldn't fully conceal... And Gaster, had no hope of hiding how much he was suffering when measured against Arial's scrutiny. She hesitated for what was perhaps only an instant and in a manner of heartbeats a faint yellow glow danced across her hands. The energy sparked dimly and whirled soundlessly through the air when she promptly sent it winding around the alchemist before he could even hope to object. Hardly an instant later Arial froze up in shock and her eye sockets widened in horror, a bright yellow glow trailing away from their shadowed depths. Nothing could have quite prepared her for what she found while scanning him for injuries with her magic. It sent her soul jittering and pulsing with a myriad of mixed emotions she couldn't quite place and added a quiet stutter to her voice when she finally found it again. _'_ _T-this...? H-how...? How could you...? Y-you walked...? You walked all the way...? All the way here....? With those injuries...?'_  
  
There was no hiding or ignoring the terror that bled into her words, though it wasn't as if Arial didn't have good reason to worried about him. With the state Gaster had been left in, he most certainly shouldn't have attempted the walk from the castle to the barracks. And he definitely shouldn't have tried making it there without pausing to rest so much as once. The way she reacted to his injuries certainly didn't help his current situation at all either. It sent another uncomfortable jab twisting at the shadows that were fighting against his somewhat less suppressed emotions and they persistently continued trying to resurface. It was annoying and confusing and above all else painful, certainly not aided by his current state of complete exhaustion. For all he was worth... Gaster just wanted it to stop, he just wanted the familiar weighted darkness to wash the pain away again. But for the life of him, he just couldn't force the jittering and twisting feelings in his soul from stabbing away at that shadows that kept him safe up till then. It took him a lot longer than he would have liked to admit to finally steady himself enough that he could react to Arial's unwanted intrusion of his privacy. And, he couldn't help the mild twinge of annoyance that passed through him when his voice came out pinched and strained despite his best efforts. _'It is far less painful than you seem to think... most of the time...'_ Arial certainly would have objected strongly to that if given the opportunity, she would have insisted that that wasn't the point. Unfortunately, Gaster was already continuing on before she could get a word in edgewise. _'As for your question, there is little I can tell you. I was not even there when Mistfall was destroyed.'_  
  
That statement seemed to draw a number of uneasy stares from those near enough to overhear, though the alchemist paid them no mind. He didn't particularly care what their interest in his conversation with the former guard was, not that he necessarily had the energy to puzzle over it in the first place. As it stood, Gaster had enough to worry about without adding those uncomfortable stares to his list... _**No... that wasn't right.**_ Asgore told him to put everything aside and focus on healing. He needed to stop thinking about Mistfall. He needed to stop concerning himself with things that he couldn't possibly change in even his wildest and most impossible dreams. It was only to be expected that his jumbled thoughts would be pulled off course again when Arial recovered from the initial confusion that had swept over her in response to what Gaster said. She didn't understand how he could have been harmed so severely if he hadn't witnessed the destruction of Mistfall firsthand. And when she finally found her voice again, her confusion certainly didn't have any trouble working its way into her words. _'But... your injuries...'_ As fate would have it, she didn't have enough time to ask him for a proper explanation... For at that precise moment, the doors to the barracks swung open and a number of castle cooks forced a rather sizeable cart inside. Beside the clattering of the cart and the scent of freshly brewed soup that drifted inside along with them, something else far sweeter seemed to linger in the air... something that smelled vaguely of cinnamon.  
  
Along behind the cooks trailed the queen, carrying with her a small tray that she had likely acquired from the kitchen when she had gone to find something that would help Gaster regain some of his lost strength. In the end, she had ended up staying longer than expected and had insisted the castle cooks prepare something a tad more impressive than the meals they had been supplying the refugees with previously. As a result, the cooks, a pair of rabbit monsters with matching blue pelts to be precise.... Had made a massive pot of chicken and wild rice soup and baked enough pastries for each skeleton to have at least two. The source of the cinnamon smell, turned out to be a number of adorable sweet rolls shaped to resemble bunnies with a thin glaze of melted frosting dribbled over the tops of them. Even Toriel had been doubtful at first, but after the cooks had insisted upon her trying one of their **_cinnamon bunns_** as they had called them... she had found little to complain about. Though, she would have preferred if they had called them something else... The pastries were quite enjoyable all told, and while the glaze was messy when it was warm... after it had cooled down it was much more agreeable. As to how the cooks had managed to fit all of the pastries onto one cart, that was something the queen still couldn't understand. Yet they had indeed still managed to bring all of the pastries with them in a single trip. And as near as she had seen, not a single one of the rolls had been damaged in the process. It was an impressive feat to be certain no matter how Toriel looked at it, and while the two rabbit monsters prepared to serve the refugees lunch... she made a mental note to have their pay raised.  
  
When the other skeletons began to move about and organize themselves for the afternoon meal, Gaster found himself watching them. It hadn't been intentional at all at first when he allowed his hand to rest at his side again and the lights in his eye sockets began to track the intermingling crowd. It didn't quite seem real to him, what ever unease that had found its way into the air faded too quickly for that... and the resonating hum of hushed conversation that replaced it certainly didn't make the scene seem any less surreal. Every now and then faint bursts of laughter filled the air, only to fade away relatively quickly out of respect for those who were still resting. If he closed his eye sockets and just listened for a while, he might have been able to pretend that none of the events of the past few weeks had ever happened. It was wishful thinking, and in all honesty he wasn't even certain himself where the faint thought had come from. Yet he still found it difficult to turn his gaze from the other skeletons while they spoke with one another and began to enjoy the afternoon meal. Something faint stirred within Gaster as he watched them, some distant note of peace that granted him something mildly resembling comfort.  
  
_**No**_ , it was nothing so kind as comfort that he was feeling deep in his weakened soul. It was a hollow sense of longing that twisted about within him, whispering of days past and times that would never be again. It would never have been enough to banish the throbbing ache in his soul or the shadowing weight he had embraced, it only made those sensations stronger. But it was enough to calm the jumbled and confusing feelings inside of him, it was enough to dull them back to a manageable degree. It had come as a relief to Toriel when she returned to see Gaster awake, even if he looked just as tired and distant as before. Something about the way he was watching the other skeletons made her feel the slightest bit better. He might not have been showing any particular interest in them, but she still believed that it was a good sign. It wasn't really surprising that Arial respectfully vacated the chair at the bedside and offered the queen a polite bow when she approached, a soft smile twitching at her skeletal features. Nor was it difficult to predict how Toriel would react to the gesture, simply waving her off with a slight smirk. In all honesty, she had tried telling Arial that formalities weren't necessary. But that hadn't stopped the skeleton from exercising them regardless.  
  
It took Gaster a short while to notice the queen even after she had already sat down, though she was hardly in any rush to move things along. She couldn't have been certain, it might have just been the exhaustion that clung to her friend and nothing more. But she thought she saw _**something**_ in the tired flicker of the sparks in his eye sockets. It was progress, she was certain of it... even if it was only minor. And within the next few moments, what ever it had been was gone again. The alchemist blinked as if coming out of a trance and slowly turned his gaze to Toriel, the weariness that clung to him sending a harsh jab of regret through her soul. He made no move to summon his spare set of hands and it never crossed her mind for even a moment to ask it of him. Her friend made no move to speak and she didn't try prompting him towards it either. It was too easy to see that he was completely drained thanks to their walk from the guest wing of the castle to the barracks, and the last thing she wanted at the moment was to put more strain on him. Toriel offered Gaster a gentle smile and spoke softly as she slowly lifted the bowl of soup that occupied the tray free of it while Arial ran around the barracks collecting spare pillows. "I was worried when you fainted... though I suppose it was my fault. I should have made certain you could manage the walk before I thought to bring you here..."  
  
What Toriel said had very little effect on the alchemist and he even found himself ignoring Arial when she returned to slide a number of pillows underneath him until he was propped mostly upright. Predictably enough, the initial movement sent irritating jabs of pain through his spine and ribs... but it wasn't exactly uncomfortable when she had finished. A few moments of hesitation kept Arial silent for a short time, in which she glanced between the two friends quietly. But eventually, she managed to speak and did what she could to avoid looking worried or let her concern reach into her voice. "I could... translate if you would like..." Something faint twitched at Gaster's thoughts when he heard her say that, and for a moment he couldn't help but wonder just how much Toriel had shared about him over the past two and a half weeks. He honestly wasn't entirely certain of what to feel in regard to it, especially when he saw the queen brighten somewhat at the suggestion. Some faint part of him acknowledged that she was likely worrying a lot more than she was letting on, and seeing as he hadn't been talking much to her... it only made sense that she would have sought out some sort of advice from what ever reliable source she could find. There it was again, an irritating prick of guilt worming around somewhere inside of his injured soul. Some part of him hated the amount of worry his condition was causing the king and queen, a fair bit more of him than could have been bothered to care previously.  
  
Under any other circumstances he might have refused the other skeleton's offer, but with the weight in his soul lessened.... he cared just enough to manage a quiet nod. He was honestly too tired to bother trying to make sense of how he was feeling or how he should have been feeling. And with the headache muddling his thoughts further, he doubted he could have summoned the magic he needed to form his constructs anyway... providing he even had enough to spare in the first place. It wasn't as if Gaster could have missed the mild relief that swept over his friend... Though, he suspected she was far happier than she permitted herself to show with the fact that he had agreed to let Arial translate for him. Some part of him was more than just the slightest bit annoyed with the fact that he had never quite been able to speak aloud in anything more than Fonts. But that was something he could afford to grow irritated with later, and possibly remedy if he ever had the chance to figure out why he had that problem in the first place. As it stood, he found it much more difficult than he would have expected for him to force himself to speak... something he was too tired to bother dwelling on for very long. And when he finally did manage to say something, the irritating rasp to his words added another jab of annoyance to the dim sensations that shifted about in his injured soul. _'You may have suggested the visit, but it was not as though you would have forced me to agree to it. If anything, the fault is mine. I should have realized that I was in no fit state to travel the full distance without stopping to rest.'_  
  
In all honesty, Gaster would have expected Arial to shorten his message or summarize it for Toriel. And he was somewhat taken off guard when she began to recite what he had to say word for word in a manner that she could understand. "You may have suggested the visit, but it was not as though you would have forced me to agree to it. If anything, the fault is mine. I should have realized that I was in no fit state to travel the full distance without stopping to rest." It was vaguely surprising in a way, enough to make him turn his gaze back to Arial while she was speaking. And he could hardly miss the sudden rigidness that marked her posture, in truth finding that he was faintly surprised by the seriousness with which she was treating her new task. As fate would have it, he didn't have very long to puzzle over her strange behavior... seeing as Toriel had already started speaking again a short time later. "True, though your mind has been wandering lately. It is not too surprising that you did not notice you were starting to tire." A soft smile twitched at the queen's lips and she quietly held the bowl of soup out for her friend to take, a familiar patient kindness sparking in her soft violet eyes. She knew that his injuries were bothering him, and in all honesty she would have rather done everything she could have to give him the chance to rest. But she doubted his pride would have handled it very well if she had tried helping him with the meal. It was not as though Toriel was wrong in that respect either, especially considering the fact that they were surrounded by what was left of his clan.

Though he had been weak since the incident of his injury, Gaster had never once passed on the opportunity to do the small things he could still manage on his own. And while he wasn't particularly hungry, the feeling of being completely drained was more than enough for him to accept the offered bowl of soup with his good arm. At any other time he might have lapsed back into silence after the queen's comment, but the dim sensations pulsing faintly in his soul were enough to prompt him towards continuing their conversation. It was with far less reluctance than Toriel had honestly expected that he responded to her comment, for he actually saw reason to justify it with a reply. _'It is not as though my condition will permit me to accomplish very much. When one is confined to bed rest, there is not much else to do but think.'_ It thrilled her far more than she would have ever expected when she heard the strange chiming tones rattling out of her friend's skull. And when Arial translated him for her, she was hardly about to let the depressing route their conversation was taking distract her from what was important. Toriel watched quietly while Gaster started eating, glad for the fact that the energy he had spent would be replenished before too much longer. And yet, she didn't allow for any long silences to fall between them, persistently forging ahead while she had the opportunity. "True enough, though there is such a thing as thinking too much or too little. It might help if you were to speak what is on your mind more frequently. If nothing else, it would give you something else to do while you heal."  
  
A brief pause stood between them in which the alchemist blinked quietly and turned his blank gaze back to Toriel, not entirely certain how to respond to what she had said. Something faint inside of him persistently insisted that he couldn't share his thoughts quite so readily with her and most certainly not Asgore either. It twitched at his thoughts dimly and told him that it would only bring them to further worry for him, something that he realized he was reluctant to allow. Even in his exhausted state however, he had the presence of mind to realize that disregarding the suggestion would only make matters worse as well. There was only one option left to him, one that sent an especially painful jab of guilt writhing through him. But he nodded quietly anyway and returned his attention to the bowl of soup Toriel had given him. It was annoying and it actually made him feel rather ill when he finally forced himself to speak, for he found the small lie that rattled free of his skull nearly unbearable. If it would ease his friends' worries however, it was something he was more than willing to endure. _'I suppose you have a point... I shall make an effort of doing so.'_ The way she seemed to brighten a bit more after Arial translated what he said for her, only made him feel worse. That worming, twisting sensation in his soul only became more persistent and it just wouldn't go away, even after his friend had let the matter rest.  
  
It was more than painful seeing how content the lie seemed to make her, for she seemed more at ease that very moment than she had been around him for entire weeks. She was taking it as a victory, and the more he thought about it... the more he found that the small lie pained him. Silence hovered between the two friends while Gaster quietly ate and tried to distract himself with the meal he had been provided. For the moment it seemed to work, if nothing else it gave him something to latch his thoughts onto. In truth it was actually pretty good, better than anything he could have made for himself to be certain. No matter how many times he had tried learning how to cook, he was one of those monsters that could somehow manage to burn water. Chemicals were one thing, and he never had any trouble when he was working with his alchemical tools... but when it came to preparing meals... he was utterly hopeless. The only bright side to his shortcomings, was that as a skeleton it was impossible for him to give himself food poisoning. No matter how horribly he failed when he tried to make something himself, the only punishment he ever received for it was the awful taste. He should have been expecting it when Toriel dragged him out of his thoughts again, she had said she wanted him to express what was on his mind more often after all. As it stood however, the faintly curious way she spoke up still caught him off guard. "You have that distant look in your eyes again, what seems to be the problem."  
  
It almost relieved him that he could actually keep his word this time instead of needing to divert the topic, and some faint part of him was certainly grateful for it. Though, when he actually admitted what he had been thinking about, a faint stab of annoyance twisted through him at Arial's reaction. _'I would not say it is a problem. I was merely thinking of how horrible this would have tasted had I been the one to prepare it.'_ Rather than translating Gaster right away, she had to stifle a laugh and turned away slightly to hide the grin that threatened to spread across her face. It surprised Toriel in all honesty, the way Arial suddenly had to struggle to contain herself. And it made her wonder exactly what her friend had said that was so funny, though she found no issue waiting patiently for her to regain her composure. It was a struggle for Arial to steady herself, and even then she couldn't quite look Toriel in the eye when she offered her a translation. As it was, the green glow that had overtaken the sparks in her eye sockets was rather difficult to miss... and there was an evident note of strain to her voice when she could finally force herself to speak. "I would not say it is a problem. I was merely thinking of how horrible this would have tasted had I been the one to prepare it." Even after she was done reciting what the alchemist had said in a manner the queen could understand, Arial still found that she had to bite back another laugh. And she was far too busy trying to recover to even notice when the queen's smile began to brighten further.  
  
As for Gaster.... he was too busy staring blankly at Arial to notice, and it would have been no understatement to say that he was unamused. He hardly saw where the humor was in what he had said, though it wasn't as if he could have seen the humor in anything right about then. Fortunately enough, he wasn't left staring at her in that empty manner for very long, seeing as the queen again decided to sidetrack his train of thought. Something faint twitched at the edges of his awareness in response to the lighthearted note that rang through her voice when she spoke up, and it wasn't too surprising that he inevitably turned his attention back to Toriel again. "Well. I was unaware of the fact that you had difficulties preparing meals. Perhaps a lesson is in order, after you have healed of course." The mild laughter in his friend's voice bit at Gaster's conscience dimly, a faint itch that reminded him her good humors wouldn't last. The faint sense of guilt that pestered him was more than enough to get him to continue, and after a few moments he quietly turned his attention back to the bowl of soup he had been given before he bothered speaking again. _'An exceedingly poor suggestion in truth... considering the majority of my attempts end with one thing or another catching fire when it is clearly not meant to.'_ The green glow shuddered out of Arial's eye sockets and was replaced by a white glimmer after she heard that... What ever humor she had seen in the turn the conversation was taking, abruptly snuffed out by the realization that Gaster had been quite serious.  
  
It was with a bit of a sigh that she began to translate what he had said, and all the while she only found herself worrying for him further despite the fact that she didn't really know him. In their brief conversations, the queen had said that he hadn't been himself since the attack... but it still surprised her. The more she looked at him, the more it seemed as though something was horribly wrong with him. There was an emptiness to the alchemist's gaze that unsettled her, and the way he spoke in such a completely detached manner... it sent a cold chill crawling up her spine. What unnerved Arial the most was the fact that the queen didn't seem to concern herself with it overly so, or else hid her own worries rather masterfully. It looked as though Toriel was used to this kind of behavior despite the wrongness of it... Despite the way it differed so completely from the ordinarily cheerful and relaxed personalities their clan was known for. It wasn't right for _**any**_ monster to have that kind of emptiness in their voice or that kind of blankness to their gaze. And it was so drastically different from what she had told her about Gaster over the course of the past few weeks. It simply wasn't normal. With the support of his friends, he should have started recovering from the entire ordeal, especially when he had someone as kind and caring as Toriel watching over him.  
  
Then again... she couldn't have said that for certain. Arial didn't know exactly what he had gone through or what sort of decisions he had been forced to make in order to survive the attack, and his earlier admission certainly didn't make piecing things together any easier. For all she knew, he had killed more than just a few humans in the chaos. For all she knew he had gained EXP and LV... and it wasn't as if she had any right to look over his stats or check his soul for any signs of that... even if she could have done so without him knowing. She had to admit that fighting the humans had been difficult enough for her, and she had the support of her friends and comrades when the real battle for her own home town had started. More than that, she had been a guard, she had the advantage of having trained to defend herself and her clansmen. She had known how to deal with the situation when it had arisen... even if she had found attacking the humans painful and the sight of their blood sickening. In the end, Gaster was just a civilian... one of the few civilians that had been fortunate enough to have survived the raids. As far as she knew, he had never fought a day in his life before then. The sound of Toriel's voice pulled Arial free of her thoughts when she spoke up to address her friend again, though it did little to lessen the amount of worrying she was doing. "All the more reason for me to offer my assistance. You may not be aware, but I am quite skilled in the use of fire magic." There was a cheerfulness about the queen that she just couldn't understand when ever she thought of the distant nature to Gaster's gaze. She would have expected Toriel to be more obviously worried for him, and yet she hid what ever concerns she might have had all too flawlessly.  
  
In the end, Arial was simply left watching the alchemist while he quietly ate and thought to himself over what the queen had said. She wasn't aware of the dim pulse of disbelief that Toriel's suggestion had sent echoing through his soul or the faint twist it gave to his thoughts. But seeing as Gaster didn't outwardly show many signs of anything aside from being tired, she couldn't have been blamed for failing to notice. In all honesty... had he been alone with Toriel, he might not have had the presence of mind to push away the compulsion to point out that it wasn't proper for the queen of all people to be giving a commoner cooking lessons. Thankfully enough, Arial's presence and the need for her to translate him, gave him just enough pause to reconsider. His current situation gave him just enough time to feel the barest twitch at his conscience that suggested such a move would have been unwise. It took him a short while to think of what he could possibly say in response to the queen's offer, and despite the reluctance feebly twisting about inside of him... he nodded quietly. There wasn't much of an argument he could make against her logic, at least not without offending her directly... though it was more than just a small bit of him that thought he still should have declined. Despite his misgivings, Gaster ended up muttering quietly in reply after finishing his bowl of soup and setting it in his lap somewhat distractedly for the time being. _'It would seem as though you have already made up your mind...'_  
  
It wasn't too surprising that Toriel's smile only grew when Arial translated what he had said for her. And the amused, somewhat stubborn gleam that worked its way into her eyes certainly wasn't out of place given her personality. Even someone who didn't know the queen all that well, would have taken one look at those eyes and known that there would be no way of refusing her... no way of escaping what ever she had roped them into. And Gaster wasn't wrong in believing that she wouldn't simply let the matter be, even if he was too exhausted and numb to quite see what she was trying to do for him. There was still a faint part of him that remembered how much Toriel cared about the small things that other people would have considered beneath her. Somewhere in his wounded soul, he knew the meaning behind the laughter in her voice when she retrieved the empty bowl and gently slid the trey she had brought onto his lap. "Well, that is not exactly the kind of enthusiasm I was looking for. But I shall take it as a victory regardless." Some faint pull on his conscience told him that what was happening just then was a good thing, but he was far too tired to unpuzzle exactly why he felt that way. His gaze wandered to the tray Toriel had given him and he was left staring at the two odd rabbit shaped pastries that occupied it, not entirely certain what to make of them. They were childishly shaped and smothered in a layer of melted frosting that made them look as though they had been baked for a young monster. He never really recalled having a penchant for sweets, and the pastries looked nothing short of overpowering.  
  
It didn't really surprise the queen when she noticed that her friend didn't quite appear to be listening to her anymore... and it wasn't exactly easy to miss the way his blank stare was fixed on the pastries she had procured for him. She couldn't have overlooked the almost calculative nature of his gaze, almost as though he were trying to unpuzzle exactly what they were supposed to be. It would have made the first time Gaster had actually shown any possible signs of refusing food since his stay in the castle had begun and she was not about to let that happen with as weak as their trip to the barracks had left him. Before he really had the time to think about ignoring the small rabbit shaped sweet rolls, Toriel was already speaking up again to drag his thoughts off course... intentionally this time. "They are actually quite good. I promise, they only **_look_** strange." Despite his reluctance, a faint twitch at the edges of Gaster's awareness convinced him that it wouldn't help the current situation at all if he didn't eat them. The bowl of soup should have been enough by itself to restore most of his strength, but the queen didn't seem satisfied with just that much alone. Even if he managed to conceal it well enough from Toriel, his reluctance wasn't something that Arial could have missed. There was a subtle difference between exhaustion and indifference, and it was one that she had become quite adept at detecting over the course of the past few weeks. She may not have known him very well, but over time she was starting to get used to finding the small signs of trouble that his friend seemed to be overlooking.  
  
At any rate... the alchemist should have reacted in some shape or form when he tried the first pastry, but nothing seemed to change in the least from the way he had been before. The queen seemed happy, but that only unsettled Arial all the more. She was starting to wonder just how much of what he did was even by his own volition anymore, and how much of it was simply because he had been asked. If nothing else he hadn't fallen down or turned to dust, so that meant his soul hadn't lost the will to live just yet. But Arial was starting to wonder if the only reason he was even still alive at all was because Toriel was there to guide him by the hand, persistently prodding him through every day as it came. It didn't take her very long to realize that she actually found it rather painful to see Gaster this way. Seeing him so lifeless actually left a hollow ache somewhere in her soul. It almost surprised her just how much she wanted to see him recover, just how much she wanted him to be alright. She didn't even realize it herself when a dark blue glow overtook the sparks in her eye sockets, at least not until after she noticed Toriel staring at her. There was something in her gaze when she met it, something that told her they would have more to speak about after the alchemist was resting in the guest wing of the castle again. For the moment however, neither of them had any desire to bring up the subject of his health or well being... at least, not while he was still within hearing distance. And if Gaster even noticed their silent exchange, he showed no signs of caring.  
  
He  honestly found that it mattered rather little to him what the queen discussed about him while he wasn't around to hear. After all, it was none of his affair how she chose to spend her time. Some distant part of the alchemist knew that he _**should**_ have cared more, but he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that he wouldn't be able to completely erase his friends' worries. Until he had healed at least, the most he would be able to manage was lessen them. The remainder of their visit to the barracks was spent mostly in silence while Gaster finished his meal as Toriel had wanted him to and he watched the other skeletons for a time. Every now and then they shared bits of meaningless conversation that he was more likely to dismiss than truly participate in... though he actually put forth a bit of effort in his interactions with the queen for a change. It was enough to ease her worries a great deal, though she was far from content with his recovery. But, progress was progress... and slow or not, Gaster did seem to be improving to a small degree. He seemed to recover from their trip to the barracks a bit too quickly for Toriel's tastes, and it was not long after that when they found that it was time for them to return to the castle. Even if she thought that the presence of his clansmen was helping him, they honestly couldn't have stayed forever. If nothing else, staying too long would likely worry Asgore a great deal if their absence hadn't already come to his attention. In the end they were forced to say their farewells and they departed by mid afternoon, just as the sun was beginning to drift towards the far horizon. And though Arial cast them a parting smile... She found a twisting, writhing, worry churning about within her soul at the sight of their retreating figures. Something inside of her just wouldn't let her forget about the empty nature of Gaster's gaze. Something wasn't right... she just didn't know what it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To any of you who were wondering...  
> Why can't Gaster cook?  
> Because I decided that Papyrus' failure at making 'anything' edible was going to be more than just Undyne's fault.  
> Also, it was funny.  
> And you'll notice quite a few hidden things in the fan novel here and there that will unexpectedly, (Or obviously seeing as some people catch on faster than others.) connect to events or characters that occurred or were born after the war ended.  
> Honestly, if it wouldn't ruin surprises, I'd be tempted to make it an Easter egg hunt of sorts. ^^'  
> Also, spoiler warning.  
> There's an adorable fluff ball in the next chapter.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Fluff!!! A stick in the mud... Aaaaand... Angry goat mom. 0_0
> 
> Disclaimer: Undertale owned by Toby Fox

**Chapter 7**

While Toriel was spending the early to mid afternoon worrying about Gaster... The second prince of the monster kingdom had been busy watching over a certain young child who's very existence would seem to irritate him to no ends. Ethril was only one hundred and seven years younger than Asgore and greatly resembled the king in many ways... though he lacked both the peaceful aura and general air of power that both his elder brothers possessed. Beyond that... he was often seen wearing flowing robes of midnight purple with the delicate tracing design of the delta rune emblazoned across the front and back. If these things alone were not enough to distinguish him from his brothers, the horns that adorned his skull were quite different from the rest of the royal family as well. Where Asgore's horns continued at a smooth angle, Ethril's curled around behind his ears and tucked underneath them more often then not. As the youngest in the royal line, the second prince was also the weakest of the three siblings. But if that truth ever bothered him, he never said as much.  
  
All the same, Ethril seemed to go out of his way to set himself apart from his brothers. Where they had learned to care for and rule the kingdom with a fair and just hand, he studied strategy and battlefield tactics should war ever arise. When Asgore was tutored in hand to hand combat, he instead honed his skills wielding ranged attack and defensive magic to compensate for his own weaknesses. Where his elder brothers were often seen relaxed or carefree, he remained dignified, composed and alert. What was more, the second prince rarely ever permitted himself to show what lurked within his heart. Ethril would often bury his feelings behind a cold and uncaring facade, and many would comment that a chill seemed to creep into the air in the wake of his presence. Of everything that set him apart from Asgore, nothing was so obvious as the stoic expression that often swept across his noble features and seeped into his dark emerald eyes. Many questioned how such a cold creature could ever be related to the king... But no one was bold, cruel or foolish enough to ever voice such things aloud.  
  
With the queen otherwise engaged and his two elder brothers seeing to the affairs of the kingdom, the duty of watching over Arun fell to him not for the first time. Even if he was the same species as the second prince and the rest of the royal family, it still wasn't exactly a difficult task to watch over the young monster. That fortunate truth was mostly thanks to the fact that he was exceptionally young, young enough that it wasn't as if he even had a full grasp on how to use his magic properly yet. At thirty seven years of age, the child was rambunctious at times but not necessarily difficult to keep an eye on if one was paying attention. He aged and matured relatively slowly like most of their kind, which meant that Arun was honestly no different from a human child of seven years for the time being... his horns hadn't even really started growing out of his short crop of white fur yet. It was such a simple task that Ethril could have even had a number of the servants supervise him instead. But the castle servants were always too lenient with him when ever the second prince decided to take such measures. There was not a single servant in the castle that could hope to stand against his charm... And even had there been, there were none who had the presence of mind to avoid looking into the child's crimson eyes. Ethril had caught on rather quickly after the first time he had made that mistake when dealing with Arun... Though he still couldn't quite understand how he was able to halt someone so completely with nothing more than his gaze and bend them to his will. Fortunate as it was, the child didn't bear any ill will towards any other living being and seemed to exercise restraint with his ability for the most part. But as far as the second prince was concerned, he was dangerous and needed to be kept under strict watch.  
  
Much as Ethril would have preferred it not to, news of the alchemist's stay in the castle hadn't remained contained for very long. Like wildfire it had spread through the servants by word of mouth and it was only inevitable that Arun had eventually overheard. Gossip was just one more thing the second prince detested, a nuisance that could never be completely silenced no matter how much effort was put into doing so. And as he had expected, the inquisitive little monster had become increasingly insistent about visiting Gaster. It was no secret that young Arun had taken a liking to him over the years he had spent under the care of the royal family. And despite his frail health, he rarely ever passed on a chance to speak with the alchemist when the opportunity presented itself. Often it was only when Ethril managed to prevent the child from learning of Gaster's presence, that he ever missed a chance to see him when he visited the castle. As it was, he would have preferred it if he could have avoided the inevitable pestering Arun had lapsed into after he had learned the alchemist was within the walls of the capital. More than once he had tried to catch the second prince unaware and entrap him in his gaze, only to fail due to the strict and cautious way he behaved around him. Eventually however... Ethril had lost the battle of wills as it was, to the child's incessant pleading and begging. Even still, he was not about to let him walk away with a victory.  
  
While directing one of the servants to fetch Arun's afternoon meal, the second prince had overheard a number of castle maids gossiping about Toriel's visit to the barracks with Gaster. And despite the mild compulsion he felt to order the chattering felines back to their tasks... It seemed a perfect opportunity to silence his pleas without rewarding him for his irritating behavior. If one thing was for certain, Ethril was not about to waste his chance to exploit the opening. Shortly after the child had finished eating, the second prince at last agreed to take him to the guest wing... knowing full well that the very monster he wanted to see wouldn't be there. And while his initial excitement had been expected, Arun's smile did nothing to make Ethril regret his decision. It didn't matter how innocent or gentle he seemed to be or how long he remained in the care of the royal family... the second prince would never trust him and he would never accept him. It honestly wasn't quite fair how he treated him, especially when one considered that Arun had done nothing wrong himself. Still, his innocence wasn't enough to convince Ethril that he was by any means harmless. In the end he was convinced that the strict and harsh way he treated him was quite necessary to protect the royal family, and indeed even the kingdom itself from the strange power Arun had gained shortly after birth. Even if Toriel didn't agree with his methods... Even if the queen hated him for it, Ethril had no intention of giving the boy free reign so long as he had any say in the matter.  
  
They stayed only long enough for Arun to change out of his nightgown and into a warm green tunic with a matching pair of breeches before they were off to the guest wing. If nothing else, the second prince was grateful for the silence that fell between them during the walk after he had cast a warning glare to the child. The last thing he wanted was Arun's excited chattering filling the halls of the castle while he guided him towards the guest wing. It was almost satisfying to him in a way, the quietness that stood in their wake. Though... Ethril didn't remain silent for very long after they began to draw near their destination. It wasn't as if Gaster would be there when they arrived, but that still didn't stop him from lapsing into a lecture as they walked. If nothing else it was something to do while he guided the child along, and it was a rare moment when ever Ethril missed an opportunity to remind him of his place... Though neither the coldness in his voice nor the frigid and stoic nature of his gaze particularly bothered Arun. In the end, he was used to Ethril being cold towards him. "Now remember Arun, he is recovering from a serious injury. You are to exercise the utmost caution during your visit." Arun had long grown accustomed to the way the second prince often preferred to pretend he didn't exist at all, and he didn't particularly find it out of the ordinary that he never looked at him directly if it could be helped. Rather than complaining or letting himself grow disheartened by this kind of treatment, the small child simply nodded with a determined glint in his crimson eyes and did his best to look serious in front of Ethril. The last thing he wanted to do was make the harshest of his caretakers angry. After all, he was looking forward to seeing Gaster for the first time in what felt like decades. It was for this reason in particular that Arun paid careful attention to everything the older monster was saying when he went on with his small rant, all too familiar with the way the second prince would at times demand for him to repeat certain sentences to be sure that he had been paying attention... Despite the fact that Ethril's lectures all seemed to follow the same patterns and themes.  
  
There was honestly only so much the prince could complain about regarding Arun, so it was only to be expected that certain subjects would become reoccurring. In a way it was almost comfortable to him, a piece of his world that would never change. It was normal to him by now and the child actually found his small lectures somehow reassuring... Even if Ethril's voice always sounded cold and uncaring... "Your health is fragile so you should not expect this visit to last very long. Enjoy the time as you see fit, but you are not to forget yourself for so much as a moment. And you are always to pay attention to your surroundings. After the disaster you caused not two months ago when you tripped over the carpet in your chambers..." Arun had been expecting it when Ethril let out a pent up breath and trailed off, it even succeeded in bringing a smile to the child's lips. He honestly didn't really understand why the second prince disliked him, but he didn't really mind it too much. If anything he had decided to treat it like a game, fantasizing with the thought that Ethril might just have been hiding a kind and caring heart behind a cold facade. Despite the childish urge he felt to meet the older monster's gaze when he glared down at him, Arun made sure to keep his eyes firmly fixed ahead of them. He knew full well how uncomfortable Ethril was with meeting his gaze, even if he had no intention of using his ability where he didn't need to. Fortunately, that meant he couldn't have seen the unmistakably cold expression that masked the second prince's features while he guided him along... though it was not as if he would have permitted it to upset him if he had. Even if Ethril was cold and bitter, Gaster was always warm and kind when ever he had the chance to visit him. The alchemist had never had a problem answering any of his questions, and often times actually seemed to enjoy teaching him small things that even Toriel didn't know.  
  
The thought that someone knew something Toriel didn't was an amazing concept to Arun. She was one of the smartest and kindest monsters he had ever known, granted he had met rather few people in his relatively short and isolated life... but that was hardly the point. "You would do well to remember that there is very little room for mistakes in regards to your well being." Nothing in Ethril's tone of voice or harshness of demeanor could shake the joy that was bubbling inside of Arun at the thought of seeing the skeleton again, and he was not about to let himself ruin his chances of actually reaching the guest wing. Without even really thinking much about it, the child nodded sternly and walked a bit straighter. He measured every step a tad more perfectly, all in the hopes of appeasing the older monster. It wasn't as if anything he did would actually make Ethril happy, but he wasn't about to let that stop him from trying at the very least. Even if he wouldn't let it bother him, the way the second prince looked at him always made him uncomfortable to some degree. It made him feel as though the older monster thought of him as some lethally poisonous snake. Or at a more disturbing thought... as if Ethril had decided he would collapse into dust with the slightest draft that found its way into the castle. After a moment's hesitation, Arun forced himself to smooth the smile off of his face as an afterthought, considering for just a second that it might annoy the prince if he looked too happy. And if there was one thing he knew he disliked more than anything, it was when Ethril actually got upset with him.  
  
It was true that he didn't have to worry about being struck for misbehaving like any other child his age would have been by an especially bitter and angry adult... Even with as mean as the second prince seemed, he'd never have stooped that low. But the older monster had long found more effective means of punishment for him that he was loathe to endure. If Arun had to pick a single penalty that scared him more than anything else, it would have been when Ethril decided to lock him in his room. It was rare enough when his health permitted him to enjoy the freedom that being cared for by the royal family brought him. And he was all too aware of the fact that he wasn't likely to have very many years left in which he could simply enjoy being a child. The second prince had explained his situation to him all too many times for him to forget it, and while he had been far too young to have any memory of his parents when they passed away... He knew that Toriel and Asgore weren't his real mother and father, though they tried their best to treat him as such. Every now and then Arun would wonder exactly what happened to his real parents, though he did his best not to dwell on the matter for very long. He couldn't really miss someone he had never known, even if it left a hollow feeling inside of him like there was something missing. When he was older, he was certain that the queen would tell him why he was the way he was and what had really happened to his mother and father. Until then, he had resolved himself to simply live life as it was and enjoy every day as much as he possibly could.  
  
When they passed into the guest wing and made their way to the room Gaster always stayed in, Arun had to bite back the shiver of excitement that rushed through him. He hoped to see Toriel there as well, if nothing else it would have meant that he would have a bit more breathing room in which to be himself. Unfortunately... for all of his hopes, it seemed as though he would have no such luck this time. For all of Arun's wishing, even the alchemist seemed absent when he pulled the slightest bit ahead of the prince and ducked inside the room... which meant he had inconvenienced Ethril for absolutely nothing. He had expected to see some inkling of annoyance or anger hovering about the older monster when he could finally tear his gaze from the empty room long enough to look up at him. But instead, Ethril simply seemed to take it in stride and Arun was rapidly starting to develop a sneaking suspicion that he had known Gaster wouldn't be there. His suspicions certainly weren't laid to rest either when the second prince barely even gave the guest quarters a brief glance before he turned and started on his way again, as if dismissing the occurrence as an unfortunate twist of fate. He could hardly believe how measured and calm Ethril sounded or the offhanded and distracted tone in his voice when he spoke up expecting him to follow. "It seems as though he is not here, I suppose we shall have to come back another time." It wasn't fair... if he hated him, the least he could have done was just say so openly instead of going through a ruse like this just for the sake of being mean.  
  
To say Ethril's behavior was infuriating to him would have been an understatement, though the bitterness writhing about within Arun was more fueled by hurt than anger. He was used to the older monster taking measures to safeguard his health well enough, and he forgave him for every harsh way he seemed to protect him. But beyond that, when ever something went wrong he seemed to hold the occurrence against him for an ungodly amount of time. It wasn't his fault that his health was so poor, he really couldn't help it. He really tried to stay active and behave as children aught to, he did his best to avoid illness and keep himself from getting hurt. But no matter how hard he tried to enjoy life, he would never have the same constitution as a healthy child. No matter how much effort Arun put into it... he would never be as strong as any other child his age should have been, and he was well aware of it. For what it was worth, he managed to avoid crying despite the building sensation of tears itching at his eyes and the tight knot that had formed in his throat. But when he started to follow the second prince back to his room, that was when Ethril's plan completely fell apart. By some unknown twist of fate, it was just when the two were about to leave the guest wing that Toriel and Gaster came into view making slow progress along the passageway. And it was far too late to salvage the situation even after a number of short seconds, for the child had already caught sight of the other two monsters.  
  
There was nothing Ethril could have done to stop Arun when he dashed out towards the queen with a bright smile and waved to her in an unmistakably informal manner. There was no form of reprimand he could have given him with Toriel standing so near and there was nothing he could do to hide the irritation that twitched at the edges of his composure when he heard Arun's choice of greeting her. Despite everything... she was simply too gentle with the child as far as he was concerned. And as a result... a soft giggle and a laughter filled shout echoed through the hallway ahead of him. "Miss Toriel!" Of everything Arun did that Ethril took objection with, he absolutely hated it when ever he addressed the queen in such a way. Still, it was neither the time nor the place for him to scold the child.... And rather wisely, he kept his irritation to himself while he watched him cover the remaining distance. Arun had of course known that his way of interacting with Toriel would annoy Ethril to no ends, and if anything he only used that thought to press himself on further. He remembered the second prince's warning about Gaster when he was a number of feet from the two adult monsters and thankfully managed to stop himself from barreling right into the queen in his haste. For a fraction of a second he almost tripped and mischief took hold of Arun in that moment. He steadied himself and swept into an exaggerated bow, flashing a bright grin to Toriel when he straightened back up again. "I'm feeling much better today!" If the motion hadn't been enough to annoy Ethril, the bubbly and overly cheerful way the child had spoken certainly did. But still... he kept to himself, knowing better than to do anything that would serve to irritate the queen.  
  
At any other time Toriel might have swept Arun into her arms and pulled him into a tight, yet cautiously gentle hug. Unfortunately, the return trip to the guest wing had been more than just slightly difficult for Gaster in his injured state... and she dared not relinquish her hold of him for so much as a moment. Even with how much effort he was putting into trying to hide the exhaustion that clung to him and the numerous times they had stopped to give him a chance to rest... it was all too easy to see that he was definitely not alright. There was a certain slowness to his every movement, an unsteady flicker to the lights in his eye sockets. In all honesty, he was only doing the slightest bit better than he had when they went out to visit the refugees in the first place. It was very likely that without the queen there to help him along, Gaster would have collapsed a while ago and indeed still might have. Even so, a gentle smile pulled at Toriel's lips and a kind gleam settled into her eyes when the child greeted her. She slowly motioned for him to follow them as they made their way back towards the guest room where the alchemist had been staying... And after a brief pause, she spoke with a certain affectionate softness seeping into her words. "I can see that! But... **_Miss Toriel...?_** And bowing now? Where did this come from, my child?" She didn't pause or wait for an answer, but turned an unmistakably cold stare to Ethril that most certainly didn't match the smile still on her face.  
  
It was the kind of look that would have frozen many in their tracks and sent an unnatural chill crawling over them. Unfortunately... he was far from being easily intimidated and saw no difficulty meeting her gaze evenly enough. He hardly agreed with what he saw as Toriel being overly nurturing in her approach when it came to dealing with Arun, and it wasn't something he ever bothered hiding from her. It didn't really phase him either when an especially harsh protective glint worked its way into her eyes and a whisper of a warning seethed through her voice at what she had to say next. "I do hope Ethril has not been too harsh with you of late, my child." What ever wordless argument that was seething through the air between the two boss monsters was completely lost on the child. He simply giggled and skipped slightly, twirling out in front of Toriel at first before moving to one side to avoid getting in her way a moment later. Arun might have been young and impulsive, but the last thing he wanted to do was cause her any trouble while she was guiding Gaster back to the guest room. It was a bit of a wait before he could stifle his laughter long enough to answer her, though it wasn't as if the second prince was tactless enough to try answering for him. There was no way out of the inevitable argument he was bound to have with the queen when the two of them were alone... and Arun's response only made that even clearer. "Not at all, he's the one who brought me to see Gaster. I didn't think I'd get to see him today when we found the room empty."  
  
There were no undercurrents of strain or anger hovering about the queen when she chuckled softly to herself at the child's antics... though one would have been mistaken to think that she was pushing the occurrence aside. For the moment, she simply had more important things to worry about than confronting Ethril in regards to his unfair treatment of him. And the last thing she was about to do, was show any signs of being upset over anything at all where Arun could see. So long as Toriel could help it, she would make his every waking hour as joyful and carefree as possible. As far as she was concerned, he deserved it with all that he had lost in his relatively short life. All that he had lost... that thought turned her attention back to her friend. Faint undercurrents of worry twisted into her eyes by the time she carefully guided Gaster back into the guest room and over to the bed... though she kept her concerns to herself for the time being. She could ask Arial what she made of his current state now that the other skeleton had been able to examine and interact with him in person... But, from the shifting colors that had been flickering through the former guard's eye sockets... Toriel doubted that any of what she would have to tell her could prove encouraging. Only after she was certain that her friend was taking a moment to rest did she dare shift her attention back to Arun... though she was finding it difficult to turn away from grim thoughts.  
  
Even after she had successfully managed to shift her focus away from Gaster's health, she still found her attention snapped up by Ethril's treatment of the young child she had grown to care for. Toriel knew the bitter prince better than to think it was a coincidence that he had brought him to the guest wing on the one afternoon that her friend hadn't been resting there. It was too obvious to her that he had fully intended to miss them, and despite maintaining a cheerful outer appearance... she made a mental note to see to that he knew just how upset she was with him for it later. Not only was it unfair to Arun, but in addition to that... Gaster had always enjoyed the child's company before. It was more than just important to bring some form of normalcy and comfort back into his life after everything that had happened... it was vital. And the way she had always seen him brighten around Arun, the way he had always enthusiastically answered the boy's questions as if he were nearly as desperate to teach as Arun was to learn... It angered her far more than she had expected to think that Ethril would have intentionally kept the two apart, even knowing how distant and detached the alchemist had become.  
  
While it was true that her friend was in no condition to entertain the child at present, he needed any support they could give him. He needed the kind of lightheartedness Arun would offer... he needed any form of diversion he could get to take his mind off of what had happened to Mistfall. And if there was one thing the child had always been good at... it was distracting the alchemist and sidetracking him with mostly meaningless conversation. She could see that he had still taken notice of Arun even in his exhausted state, and while he didn't outwardly show much of a reaction... the fact that he spared the strength to turn his gaze to him was promising enough. And though she wasn't able to tell... some distant part of Gaster wanted to stay awake for at least part of the inquisitive young child's visit just as she would have hoped. Unfortunately... even the lingering ache in his soul and the remaining stabs of discomfort that twitched at his damaged bones, weren't enough to keep him awake. And though he tried to hold on for as long as he could manage, it didn't matter what manner of dim sensations were shifting about within his wounded soul. After a short while, Gaster still drifted off again and the glow in his eye sockets faded away silently.  
  
It hardly seemed an instant later that Toriel was watching Arun poke his head up over the edge of the bed to get a better look at the skeleton. And she certainly couldn't have missed the way his eyes seemed to widen in concern when he noticed that he had already fallen asleep. She was definitely expecting it when he turned to look up at her and spoke up to voice his worries aloud, and it came as no surprise to her how close to being scared he sounded. "Is he going to be okay? I don't think I've ever seen him **_that_** tired before..." She was all too aware of Ethril watching the three of them from the doorway, even if he remained silent and refused to enter the room or disturb them in any way. If nothing else it seemed he had the wisdom to know that she would have words with him after they were done in the guest wing. He certainly showed no signs of leaving anytime soon at any rate, but Toriel refused to let his presence bother her when she swept Arun up into a gentle hug. She cradled him in her arms for a moment and then lapsed into tickling the small child with a startling amount of care, ever cautious not to cause him too much strain. It honestly wouldn't have mattered either way, he wasn't quite _**that**_ fragile. But she wasn't about to take any chances when it came to Arun's health... At least, not so long as she could help it.  
  
The castle corridors of the guest wing echoed with the child's laughter for a time, which pitched through the air in a carefree manner that always served to irritate the second prince. That was something Toriel was well aware of even without him openly stating it. Simply put, she knew he hated it when Arun laughed... But if Ethril was going to continue treating him so poorly... She certainly wasn't about to take any measures to spare him the annoyance, especially if what ever annoyed him served to make Arun feel better. Never would she pass on an opportunity to make the child smile, and the bitter second prince of the kingdom would just have to live with it. She stopped tickling Arun just when he started to look slightly breathless and within the next instant she had moved on to nuzzling her brow gently against his. Comforting him was hardly a difficult feat, and it was something that even at that moment sent a bright smile creeping across her face. There was a certain softness to Toriel's voice when she muttered quietly to the child, though it couldn't hope to measure against the tenderness for him that she held in her soul. "Of course he is going to be alright, I saw to the healing myself after all. But, you should know that it takes a great deal longer for a skeleton to recover from an injury than it does anyone else. He shall be tired for a while, so you need to remember to be patient and not to worry."  
  
Over time Arun managed to curb his laughter and subdue it into soft giggling without the queen tickling him anymore, and it was only a short while after that when he was able to hold his voice steady enough to speak. After he had finally managed to calm himself, Toriel was actually quite surprised by the sudden seriousness that seemed to sweep over him. Even his giggling died off and though his voice was quiet, she couldn't have missed the almost stubborn twist it had taken on. "That also means he's going to be weak for a while too right?" It was unexpected enough that she pulled away slightly to look at him, though that proved a true mistake when she found herself entrapped by his gaze. Arun's crimson eyes sparkled and glimmered with faint undercurrents of magic, shimmering slightly in an almost hypnotic way, making it impossible for her to look away. She found that her voice had fled her and a chill began to crawl through her, causing the fur along the back of her neck to stand on end. It was impossible for Ethril to miss what was happening, but the child was already continuing on with his request before he could take action. There was a slight whine in Arun's voice, a pleading nature to his gaze regardless of whether or not it would have made any real difference in the end. "I want to help! Can I help take care of him till he's better? Please?!?!"  
  
Hearing what he had to ask of Toriel gave Ethril pause and he abruptly froze mid step, hesitating. After several tense moments, the sudden rigidity that had overtaken him slowly eased and the second prince returned to his former place by the door with a bit of a pent up breath. He did what he could to wipe away the grim nature that shadowed his eyes, but all he could really manage was force the same stoic coldness as before to return to them. If there was one thing he hated more than anything else... it was when the child manipulated members of the royal family. Ethril was exceedingly protective of his brothers and the queen, even if he was the youngest sibling of three and therefore the weakest of the royal line. It was difficult for him to permit Arun anywhere near them no matter how much Asgore and Toriel adored the child, though it wasn't as if he had the power or influence to keep them apart... And even if he could have done so, he knew that they would never forgive him for his actions if he did. The most Ethril could hope for was to discourage him from using his strange power and pray that he never abused it under any circumstances. It was something he certainly didn't like to think about, the fact that such a small creature could tear the royal family apart with ease if they ever felt the need to. If he wanted to, Arun could have forced any of them to do anything at any given time... And that was a concept that utterly terrified him, though he would never allow the child to learn of the fact that he was actually afraid of him.  
  
If nothing else, the amount of caution Ethril exercised when dealing with him proved enough to keep him safe from being manipulated for the most part. He never let his guard down around Arun, though it wasn't as if he could have been blamed... even if he was being slightly paranoid. The simple truth of the matter was that anyone was vulnerable to the child's power, even a boss class monster like every member of the royal family. There was no hope of refusing his whims after he cast his spell upon someone, though the one bright side was that he had to maintain eye contact for it to work. If he looked away for even an instant before he finished his request, the spell would fail... Though, it wasn't as if holding it was very difficult... There was no pulling away from Arun's crimson eyes when ever he managed to get someone to look into them, and even now he held the queen captive. The shimmering undercurrents of magic in the child's eyes clouded her thoughts and for the life of her, Toriel couldn't look away... she couldn't clear her mind enough to refuse. She knew that Gaster probably wouldn't be too fond of the idea... in all honesty even if he had been in his right mind it probably would have been a mortal blow to his pride. What was more, she doubted Arun's fragile health would have allowed him to help. But at the same time, she neither had the heart nor the clarity to tell him as much.  
  
For a great length of time she simply stared into the child's eyes, silent and lost to the point where she even started to forget the reasons she should have refused him. Eventually his magic won in the end and she nodded in a bit of a dazed manner, muttering to him in a distant and uncertain way that only angered Ethril even further. "If that is what you wish... my child..." The way Arun's seriousness faded into joy, the way he cut off his spell the moment Toriel surrendered to his wishes... it left the second prince clenching his fists so hard that his claws dug into his palms and drew blood. Yet still, he didn't speak... he wouldn't voice his grievances, not until the queen forced him to. It took an ungodly amount of effort for Ethril to bury his fury enough that it wouldn't start tainting the air around him in a thick miasma of discontent. But with a bit of self control, he folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the door frame to watch them with a lingering coldness about him. It normally only took someone a few seconds to recover from the daze Arun's magic caused, but that did nothing to soothe the anger seething within the second prince. The compelling effects of the spell itself would linger on until his demands were met... Which meant that Toriel would feel pressed to take him out of his chambers every morning to visit Gaster, even if there really wasn't much he could do to help him recover. She would be under the effects of the child's magic until the skeleton had healed, and that was something that didn't sit well with Ethril in the least. He found that he could only bear to watch a short while longer when the queen's clouded gaze cleared, and he found himself looking away when Arun smiled up at her. When the young monster giggled and looped his arms around Toriel's neck in a loose hug, the sound of his laughter felt like poison in the air to the second prince. The string of grateful mutterings that tumbled from his lips were hollow in his eyes, and nothing would change just how meaningless they were to Ethril. "Thank you! Oh thank you so much! I promise I won't get in the way! I promise I'll be careful! I promise I'll be the best helper ever!"  
  
A soft chuckle worked its way free of Toriel and she hugged Arun a little closer, sighing softly in defeat within the next few seconds. It wasn't as if she didn't know what just happened, but she didn't have it in her to be upset with him. His intentions were pure enough and she had always had a soft spot for children in the first place. She had always loved them dearly and unquestioningly regardless of whether they were even monster children or not. There was an endearing sort of ignorance to them, a certain purity and innocence that brightened the world around them. She could never be angry with a child for any reason, and more often than not... she found herself treating them no differently than she would had they been her own. It was true that she disagreed with Arun using his abilities to get his way when he knew he wouldn't win an argument otherwise. But in all honesty, she probably would have surrendered before long even if he hadn't used his magic. A certain fond silence fell over them in which Toriel seemed to project a soft and loving air, a gentle smile pulling at her lips. Though... she only remained quiet for a short while longer and muttered softly to the child before too much time had passed, her words nothing more than an affectionate sigh. "What are we to do with you..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Arun's abilities are an unusual and incredibly unnatural thing... hence why Ethril is so wary of him aside from the fact that... yeah... scary power.  
> And in case it wasn't clear enough, there's going to be a lot more information about the little fluff ball in the next chapter...  
> Along with Toriel being terrifying....  
> I'm not sure if she's scarier when she's concealing her anger... or when she's openly showing how pissed she is...


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Oh... so that's why he's a jerk... Also... the fluff has been ruined.
> 
> Disclaimer: Undertale owned by Toby Fox

**Chapter 8**

The rest of the afternoon passed relatively uneventfully for the most part... and Toriel couldn't have complained about that fact in the least. Gaster slept on peacefully even after the sun began to set and it wasn't as if she could have missed how undisturbed his slumber seemed for a change. Rather mercifully and for one of the first times since his stay in the castle had begun, it was as though he was free of the horrors that stalked him through each night. She wasn't wrong in assuming that he was simply too drained from the events of that afternoon to dream of anything at all, though she was grateful that he had found a moment of peace. Some part of her believed that it was a good thing, despite the fact that she hated the thought of him straining himself for any reason while he was recovering. Some part of her even debated prompting Gaster into tiring himself out more frequently in an effort to combat the nightmares, though she knew it wasn't exactly the best plan. Even the mere thought of forcing him to exhaust himself like this intentionally was enough to send a twisting, writhing pang of guilt worming through her. But even though he insisted that the dreams didn't bother him, she couldn't overlook how horribly they seemed to be torturing him. It was true that he always shook them off relatively quickly after he woke up... if one could even look at the detached, almost vacant manner in which he had been behaving and have the courage to refer to it as recovering... But she couldn't ignore the fact that he always simply fell silent or brushed her off when ever she asked about them, as if the subject either wasn't worth the time or he found it was too painful to discuss.  
  
Despite Toriel's hopes that he would be alright, she had a sinking feeling that she knew why her friend wouldn't tell her anything about what he saw when ever he slept. It might have been true that Gaster was no real fighter, but he wasn't a coward by any means. More than that even, the glow that snaked out of his eye sockets whenever he was having a nightmare was definitely the wrong color to account for something like that. It wasn't as if she was stupid or ignorant enough to believe him without question when her own eyes were telling her something completely different from what he claimed either. If the nightmares were only scaring him, it should have been a yellow glow rather than the burning crimson she had seen over the course of the past few weeks. While it might have been true that she didn't know exactly what he was seeing, it was all too obvious to Toriel that he was suffering silently... likely still haunted by the memory of what had happened the day Mistfall was lost. And though she managed to maintain a cheerful outer appearance for the sake of ensuring she didn't startle or worry Arun... she still couldn't tear her thoughts away from fretting over her friend's condition. The hours trickled by painfully slowly for her and yet all together too quickly as well, until she eventually found herself reading a collection of short stories to the child out of a large leather bound book. Even that didn't serve to truly distract her, though if nothing else... he seemed to enjoy them at least. It was plain to see that Arun always enjoyed the time he spent with Toriel, after all he was nothing if not easy to appease. Like most children, he just wanted to be loved and given the opportunity to repay what ever kindness was shown to him.  
  
As for Ethril... he remained stationary at the doorway and refused to move more than an inch from where he was regardless of how much time passed. If he found it uncomfortable to remain standing in the same place for so long, he didn't show it and he certainly didn't ever make a move towards the spare chairs in the room. It was hard to tell whether it was out of pride or a simple reluctance to be anywhere near Arun so long as he could help it... But that still didn't change the fact that he hadn't moved. The truth of the matter was that the last thing he wanted, was to risk falling victim to the child's power again after the first time it had happened. It wasn't as if Arun had meant any harm back then in the least, he had just been lonely and wanted someone to take him out into the castle gardens for the afternoon. Of course, that had ended rather badly for all involved seeing as it had been during the later months of autumn. In the end, the chill in the air had proven too much for Arun's fragile health and he had fallen gravely ill. As a result, he had been left recovering for nearly a month in which time no amount of healing magic or medicine had proved especially helpful in improving his condition. Predictably enough, Asgore and Toriel had been frantic the entire time he was ill... The second prince even remembered that he had passed by on several occasions to see his eldest brother half draped over the child's bed late at night, the result of the king having fallen asleep watching over him.  
  
It had been painful to watch, made only more unbearable by the fact that it had been by his hand that Arun had been let out into the gardens where he had nearly caught his death of cold. Even if he had meant no harm by it, Ethril would never forgive him for the amount of grief the incident had caused them. With a look and a muttered request, he had stolen his own free will from him and forced him into doing something that had caused suffering to the ones he loved. More than that even, the entire disaster had really opened his eyes as to how fragile Arun really was... and he dreaded the thought of what would happen should the child's health ever truly fail. There was nothing to be done about his frail constitution, no mixture or magic that could be used to improve it. The second prince was convinced that he wouldn't live to see adulthood, and every day he saw the royal family growing more attached to Arun was its own form of agony. The child wasn't even theirs by blood, and yet he had found an irrevocable place for himself in both Toriel and Asgore's hearts. It wasn't right as far as he was concerned, and when he thought about the amount of anguish it would cause them should anything ever befall him... Ethril only found himself resenting Arun all the more, even if their current situation wasn't truly his fault in any way.  
  
What ever dark turn the second prince's thoughts were taking on, was immediately shattered by the soft creak of Toriel easing out of the rocking chair she had settled in. It took a few seconds longer than it should have for him to realize what that meant, and with a bit of a start... he noticed that Arun had fallen asleep in her arms while she had been reading to him. Anyone else might have found the sight of him curled up in her grasp, slumbering peacefully and clutching the front of her dress with one paw rather endearing. But it held no such power over Ethril, it still wasn't enough to make him forget the way he felt about the child. Rather than taking him out of the room as Ethril would have expected, Toriel instead quietly paced over to the guest bed where Gaster was resting. It surprised him a lot more than it should have when she cautiously settled Arun down a short distance from the sleeping skeleton. There was just enough room between them that even if the child started tossing in his sleep, he couldn't have caused the alchemist any harm. Though, it wasn't as if that was something she had to worry about in the first place. Even so, she still took the time to tuck him in as carefully as she could, and all the while she watched him for any signs of stirring. The last thing she wanted right about then, was to run the risk of waking Arun before she had a chance to speak with Ethril. And now that he was asleep, she intended to have a _**long**_ discussion with the second prince. It was with a certain cautious slowness that she began to pull away from the child, ready to stop the moment he showed any signs of waking up. When he didn't so much as twitch, she allowed herself to relax just the slightest bit and finished straightening back up.  
  
With one last fond glance down at Arun, the queen turned and made her way towards the doorway. But the gentleness that had claimed her fair features melted away into something cold and harsh when she swept past Ethril, the glare she directed towards him so scathing that for a moment... he almost thought it could cause him to burst into flames right where he stood. The meaning of that look wasn't lost to him by any means and hardly an instant passed between the two royals, before he was following her out into the hall with a resigned air. He made sure to take several extra paces away from Toriel for good measure, if for no other reason than to be certain she had enough room to close the door behind them. But he didn't turn to face her even after the quiet creek of the large oak door being carefully eased into place reached him. Instead... he took a few moments to cast his cold gaze around the guest wing, finding to his satisfaction that there was no one around to hear what she would have to say to him. At least the servants wouldn't be able to gossip about what ever was going to happen between them. If nothing else, he was certain that this argument wasn't going to be a pleasant one for either of them. Ethril would only have to wait a few seconds, she would finish making sure the door was rightly shut before he even knew it. Even still, those few seconds weighed on his soul far heavier than he would ever willingly admit to anyone... even himself. With a measured breath, he prepared as best he could for what was to come and slowly turned to face Toriel with the most neutral expression he could force. His demeanor was perfectly blank and empty, even more so than usual, something he had spent entire decades learning how to manage for occasions just such as the one he found himself in.  
  
It was far too late for him to turn back now, to surrender and ask forgiveness or understanding... even if he didn't want to cause her any grief. He knew her all too well, and even knowing how their argument was going to hurt her... Ethril would not back down. This had to happen as far as he was concerned, and he refused to show any fear or regret. He had held his tongue for far too long, he was not about to remain silent any longer. Those moments of peace before the storm felt like a small eternity to him. And yet when they had ended, he still found himself secretly wishing that the silence could have lasted longer. It felt as if the queen had already ensured that the door would remain closed and turned back to face him before he could even blink. And there was no ignoring the certain unforgiving coldness that crept into her gaze. When she broke the silence that stood between them, she spoke slowly... measuredly. There was a dangerous sort of edge to her voice, one that whispered as frigidly through the air as trailing mist. "You knew I had taken Gaster to the barracks... did you not? You knew neither of us would be here to greet Arun upon your arrival." It most certainly _**had**_ been phrased as a question... but it wasn't one, and Ethril knew that much with absolute certainty. Toriel was far too observant, far to clever, to miss the truth when it stood before her... and this was no different. Her words were an accusation, one that he would force himself to meet both truthfully and defiantly. In that moment however, he offered her no reply and his silence only served to add to the tension that roiled through the space between them like a building storm.  
  
It sparked and shifted through the air into an invisible cloud of grimness that simply hung there... suffocating... overpowering.... unsettling in all that it was. The uncomfortable feeling brought with it an unnatural stillness that made even the smallest sound seem deafening... and beyond the closed door to the guest quarters, Arun began to stir quietly. He twitched in his sleep when the ghastly air began to seep into the room, and yet the tension continued to build between Toriel and Ethril. Slowly over time, the queen's paws curled into fists at her sides and she was forced to take another carefully measured breath in an effort to keep herself grounded. The action still didn't serve to stop the threatening gleam that worked its way into her eyes when her voice again broke the stillness around them... But if nothing else, it made her feel a bit more in control of herself. There was no ignoring the anger that seethed through her words, but at the very least she managed to reign herself in to a respectable degree. "Why? Why did _you_... _Intentionally_... and with full knowledge of his condition... try to keep them apart?" Truthfully... saying Toriel sounded angry wouldn't quite have done justice to the dark, seething note that hissed through her every word. She was livid, and it whispered to the second prince in every carefully measured breath she drew. This was already starting off just as badly as he assumed it would, and from here it was only bound to get worse. He refused to show it in the least, but it actually surprised him a fair deal that the heaviness in the air hadn't grown any more stifling than it already was... though he supposed there was still plenty of time for that to change. And yet, he still had no hope of realizing just how infuriated she was with his actions... not that it really would have made any difference in the end.  
  
The hours in which Toriel had been tending to Arun had given him plenty of time to compose himself and prepare for this conflict, to think about what he would need to say to her and to sharpen his resolve for what was to come. He was resigned to this and he was ready to face her no matter what that would mean. Another brief silence yawned between them, in which time Ethril slowly folded his paws behind his back. One in which he regarded her with the same frigid expression as before, not the slightest sign of weakness so much as flickering through his eyes. There was no way for her to know just how cutting he found the harsh glare she had settled on him, for he simply refused to react to her hostility in the least... despite how painful he found it was to be the focus of her anger. If there was one thing he would never allow, it was for him to back down after he had already resigned himself to doing something. This would be no different, he had already come too far to turn back now as it was anyway. But even with that thought firmly rooted in his mind, he found that he had to take another few seconds to steel himself before he could even hope to answer her. And when he finally found his voice, the second prince found what he had to say painful beyond words. He still managed to force himself to speak measuredly, coldly and though his voice rang with a familiar almost cruel emptiness to it... it felt as though every word tore at his throat like jagged fragments of shattered glass. "You indulge the boy too much, Lady Toriel. His magical abilities are not even fully developed yet, and still he has the potential to cause great harm. You are allowing your feelings for the child, blind you from the obvious threat he poses to the royal family... to the kingdom... and to you as well."  
  
For what it was worth, Toriel managed to hold on to her composure despite the rising fury his words stirred to life within her. But the harsh edge that worked its way into her voice wasn't something she could hide any more than it was something Ethril could ignore, nor was the swift nature of her reply or the sudden surge of anger that seethed into the air. "He is a child! What happened to Lady Elunara and Lord Xaven was not his fault!" The tension that hovered between the two royals shifted and changed abruptly, growing more unbearable in a different and sickening way. The sensation that hung in the air tilted away from anger just slightly and rippled with something closer to nausea. It twisted and writhed with something close to the sort of muted horror one would experience upon seeing a sword shoved through their own chest. And for just an instant... at the mention of Lady Elunara, Ethril's composure almost completely fled him. A flicker of something horrified, anguished and wounded passed through his eyes, only for him to stamp it out the moment it had tried to reveal itself. But it wasn't something the queen could have missed, nor was the shift in the air. She had known speaking of Arun's mother would hurt the second prince greatly, but if he insisted on delving into this matter... it was impossible for either of them to avoid mentioning her.  
  
It had been a severe blow to the entire kingdom when both Lord Xaven and Lady Elunara perished within the same evening. That night a cry of anguish rippled throughout the land, and yet none had taken the news worse than Ethril... It hadn't really been surprising how devastated he had been or how wounded he still was... it was only to be expected. The second prince had been exceptionally fond of Lady Elunara even after Lord Xaven had taken her for his wife. It had been no secret that he cared for her a great deal, nor had he ever tried to conceal that truth. Though... he had respected her wishes above even his own and chosen to safeguard her happiness rather than pursue her. Even if he hadn't been truly happy himself, he had still been content in those times simply with the knowledge that Elunara was. Toriel even remembered actually having seen a soft gentleness to his gaze from time to time back then, rather than the cold and composed mask of emptiness he clung to so adamantly in recent times. Ethril had always been quiet and reserved, but Lady Elunara's smile had been one of the few things that served to melt his frozen facade... even if it wasn't something often directed towards him specifically. There had even been once or twice that she could remember where he had actually laughed when in Elunara's company. It had always been strange to see the second prince's composure slip, but it had been reassuring and uplifting in a way as well. Seeing someone so stubbornly composed and carefully collected showing signs of actually caring about someone, had made the world seem gentler somehow.  
  
There were no words that could have described how painful Ethril found it was to allow this turn in the conversation, even if he had known it would be coming. But the last thing he was willing to do was show weakness before the queen, especially in this matter... especially after he had already weathered their argument this far. If he was going to go through with this, he was going to do it right. And he silently reminded himself that he needed to remain strong... unbreakable... Where all others failed, he had resolved himself to succeed, whatever the cost to him might prove to be. Nothing would change the fact that the second prince would bear any burdens he needed to if it meant protecting the ones he loved, though his soul still ached with the weight of it... The mixture of pain and anger that radiated off of the two boss monsters was potent, but it was Ethril's grief that whispered through the air strongest of all. It slowly snaked into the guest room over time, darkening the world with a touch like poisoned honey. It spoke softly of the anguish and loss that he was too proud to voice aloud, betraying what lie buried in his wounded heart. Arun stirred in the presence of it, and the unbearable sensation slowly pulled him back to wakefulness. For a moment he wasn't quite sure why he had woken up in the first place and he even managed to sit upright in bed a bit groggily. It looked like it was still dark out, or he thought it did when he started rubbing his eyes and trying to make sense of where he was. His tired mind ground to an abrupt halt when Ethril's muffled voice reached him from the other side of the door, freezing him in place right where he was. There had been no real anger behind what he had said, at least none that the child could hear. Even despite that fact, he could still feel the weight of every word that tumbled from his lips as if the world itself was somehow growing darker in their presence. And each damning utterance drew his attention far more than either of the royals ever would have wanted, if they had only been aware of him listening.  
  
"He should never have been born. If not for him, they would both still live." Like a moth to a candle flame, those words lured him in. They quietly poked and prodded away at him alongside a creeping sense of dread and what was perhaps curiosity. It was too much for him to bear and after a few moments, Arun was slipping out of bed as carefully as he could so as to avoid bumping or jostling the sleeping skeleton in any way. The last thing he wanted to do was risk irritating Gaster's injuries, and then there was the fact that he didn't want him to wake up just then. He had a sinking feeling that what ever the two adult monsters were talking about was something he wasn't supposed to hear, but at the same time he felt compelled to listen. A sense of guilt shadowed him even after he had crept up on the door to find a better listening spot, and he was all the more certain that what he was doing was wrong when he heard the tone in Toriel's voice. It was far different from the sort of gentleness he was used to hearing, lower and much more severe despite the faint note of disbelief that marked her every word. "Are you even listening to yourself? Do you realize how ridiculous you sound? Do you realize how unreasonable you are being?" Even from where he was listening, Arun could still hear it when Ethril hissed in a tense breath. But even with his pain roiling through the air alongside the anger it stirred to life within him, he couldn't have known how cutting what she said proved to be for the second prince.  
  
For the first time in a long while, Ethril found himself struggling to maintain his composure despite his best efforts. There was little he could do to disguise the slight edge that worked its way into his voice when he answered her, though he managed to keep himself in check for the most part. "Ridiculous? Unreasonable? You of all people should know the cost of wild magic and the dangers it presents. Desperation and magic are a potent mix, and Lady Elunara was loosing her first child the very moment he had been born. Not only did it cost both she and Lord Xaven their very lives, but we have no way of knowing exactly what form of creature has come if it!" Even when struggling with the anguish that being forced to speak Lady Elunara's name himself had brought him... The second prince still wished that he could have been kinder, that he could have been gentler somehow... But there never seemed to be any reasoning with Toriel when it came to Arun, it always seemed as if she loved him blindly. The look of wounded disbelief and speechless horror that flashed across her face certainly didn't help the situation either, it only added to the pain their argument was already causing Ethril. The weight in his chest had begun to grow worse, the ache in his soul becoming more of a searing pain than anything else. Hurting her was the last thing he wanted, but it seemed that his every attempt at protecting the queen only served to either build resentment between them or worse.  
  
It only took Toriel a few seconds longer than it should have to recover from the initial shock of what he had said. But by the time her fury had returned to her, it paled in comparison to what it had once been. She had lost her momentum, and despite how badly she wanted to be angry with Ethril... his words sat in her chest like a block of ice. It was hard for her to believe that he could have grown cold enough to speak with her in such a manner without showing so much as a hint of remorse... That he could even begin to discuss wild magic as though she had forgotten all it had cost their race specifically over the course of the ages. Entire bloodlines had been completely eradicated, whole families wiped out in the span of a single night as a consequence of one broken heart. Toriel herself was the last survivor of her own bloodline, and there were fewer of their kind left than any other race known to them. What troubled her about his behavior most of all however, was that he seemed to believe himself fully justified in his actions. There was a distant sort of sternness to her voice when she spoke again, something too weak to be compared to stubbornness. It wasn't strong enough to hide what lingered just beneath it, a distant whisper of lingering grief that added a faint note of brittleness to her every word. "You have nothing to say that I am not already aware of. I could never forget all that we have lost... nor would I ever wish to."  
  
The tension in the air eased ever so slightly, a shifting sigh that the whole world seemed to breath all at once... All except for Arun, who found himself slowly backing away from the closed door. He trembled and shook, hugging himself as tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. There were plenty of things the child didn't know about his parents, but their names weren't something he would ever forget. It wasn't exactly hard for him to make sense of the fact that they had been speaking about him, he had certainly heard enough to draw that conclusion all on his own. He didn't want to hear anything more, he didn't want to know anything else he shouldn't have. With a shuddering breath that grew into a stifled sob, he hurried back over to the bed as quickly and quietly as he could... doing his best not to alert any of the adults to the fact that he was awake. It was a struggle for him to haul himself onto the mattress without something to use as a stepping stool or someone else helping him. But given the circumstances, he didn't care enough to let his small size get in the way and he even managed to crawl back over to the far side of the bed without jostling Gaster too horribly much. If he hadn't been so distraught, he might have had the time or sense to be worried about the slight waves of motion his scrabbling sent through the mattress... but he was no where near calm enough for such complex thoughts. The next thing he even knew, he had already dragged the sheets over himself and curled up into as tight a ball as he could manage.  
  
Buried in the covers and tucked away in the darkness of the room, Arun lie shivering and crying quietly to himself. Every breath was another stifled sob, every moment another second where he struggled not to make any noise that would disturb the sleeping alchemist or alert the queen as to the fact that he had been listening. And still the conversation out in the hall continued, unhindered and unaware of the child who had been eavesdropping. For what was perhaps the first time in decades, Ethril's voice softened the slightest bit and found an unbearably faint note of gentleness. "And yet... you have said nothing to Asgore..." If the second prince's words hadn't been enough to freeze Toriel in place, the sudden shift in his voice certainly was. A tight knot settled into her chest and a heavy lump formed somewhere in her throat, holding her silent. She didn't know how she was supposed to respond to that, how she was supposed to explain herself. She didn't know what she could possibly say to him. If nothing else... it wasn't as if she would have needed to say anything, the surprise and worry that twisted across her face was too easy for Ethril to read. And within the next moment, he had pointedly looked away from her in order to avoid loosing the resolve he needed to keep going. It was several seconds before he could bring himself to continue, though he was still more than grateful that the argument had shifted in his favor. The searing ache in his soul was beginning to dim now that he could afford for a bit more kindness in what he said. And the shift in the conversation gave him exactly what he needed to distance his thoughts from the mention of Lady Elunara, though he couldn't quite recover from being forced to speak her name. "Yes. I did in fact notice the traces of wild magic clinging to Gaster and my-..."  
  
For a moment, Ethril had almost forsaken formalities and referred to the king as his brother for the first time since Asgore had ascended to the throne. But even if the queen wouldn't have cared or noticed his momentary lapse, the second prince couldn't have possibly accepted it. He cut himself off with a stubborn sort of abruptness and adamantly refused to finish what he had been about to say. A slight ripple of agitation shifted into the air, Ethril's annoyance at his own blunder lingering about him like a grim cloud. It only took him a short while to recover from this of course and within the next few seconds, he had forced his voice back into its usual stoic coldness. What ever emotion had begun to bleed through his mask of emptiness, died and faded away to the perfectly measured manner he returned to. The gentleness that had crept into his words vanished like snow thrown into a desert and he returned a perfectly composed gaze to Toriel when he continued. "... His majesty... You should not be so shocked. With the importance I place in the strength and mastery of my magic, it is no surprise I was able to detect it." An unbearable silence hovered between them for a number of seconds, cold, still and impenetrable... Until at last the queen managed to recover from the news that Ethril had noticed Asgore's mistake. The last thing she had been expecting was that he would find out, she had hoped that the traces of wild magic had faded before anyone else could notice them.  
  
With a bit of a pent up breath, she averted her gaze from the second prince and searched for some way of answering to his unspoken questions without knowing for herself what had happened. No answers presented themselves to her and time seemed to stretch on for an eternity in the several seconds it took her to find her voice again. Even if she couldn't accept so much as half of what he had said so far, she couldn't deny that she probably should have said _**something**_ to her husband by now. This wasn't a matter in which anyone could afford to be lax, it was a serious problem and a very real concern. Even if it had been an accident as she still believed, there was no ignoring the possibility of something pushing the king to such extremes again now that it had already happened once. A sinking feeling washed over Toriel and dragged away the last of her anger with it, the tension that hovered between her and Ethril fading into something far less than before. Her voice was soft and quiet by the time she could finally force herself to speak, her words just barely above a whisper in the still night air. She had been worrying about Asgore nearly as much as she had been Gaster since she discovered the traces of wild magic clinging to their friend's wounds. Back then she had pushed her concerns aside due to the alchemist's uncertain condition, and while he wasn't exactly in a fit state for anything quite yet... He was certainly recovered enough that her worries for her husband had started to return just as strong as they were before. It certainly didn't help that she hadn't been able to speak with Asgore about it in the least with the threat of war looming on the horizon... "I have been meaning to speak with him... however... with the state of the kingdom... I believe I would rather avoid adding yet another worry to the burdens he must bear."  
  
It was only to be expected that Ethril would try to interject, but Toriel had already risen a paw to silence him before he could so much as begin to speak. The action had a rather apparent and immediate effect on him, though it wasn't exactly surprising with the way the tension had begun to bleed out of the air. Despite his obvious impatience, he bit back what ever he had been about to say and waited for the queen to continue. Yet, every second that stretched between them served to coax a bit more of the unsettling sensation back into the world around them. Where the queen's anger had faded, Ethril's own fury swelled and seeped into the space it had left behind. It wasn't too hard for him to imagine what she was going to say, but he still found himself struggling to quell the seething rage that rose up inside of him when he heard what she had decided upon. As odd and perhaps hypocritical as it seemed, he found the calm and collected way she was approaching the situation absolutely infuriating. From where he stood, it almost looked as if she wasn't even really concerned with the issue in the first place. "Nothing we do now may change what has happened. I have no intention of ignoring this... For the moment however, Gaster is still recovering from his ordeal and there are much larger problems we must concern ourselves with. I do not believe Asgore ever would have intentionally resorted to such desperate measures. It was an accident, of that I am certain. He lost his composure while trying to heal him, and while I am concerned... seeing as it has done no harm to either of them... I am willing to let the matter rest for now." Toriel cautiously took note of the harsh rigidness that washed over Ethril, hardly missing for a moment the mutinous glint that flared to life in his dark emerald eyes.  
  
Time seemed to stretch on far longer than it should have during the several seconds where he simply stood there staring at her, struggling to keep his expression neutral. If nothing else, he failed to conceal the fact that he had begun to quietly grind his fangs together... though he did somehow manage to do so without permitting his lips to so much as twitch. After what felt like a small eternity, he finally tore his gaze from the queen and abruptly spun around. Without another word, he turned his back to her in order to stare at one of the tapestries hanging from the walls in some vain attempt to ground himself again. They stood in complete silence like that for far too long and yet it still wasn't long enough for Ethril to truly calm down in the least. When he could finally force himself to speak, a dark note worked its way into his words despite his best efforts to conceal just how furious he really was... though given the circumstances... it wasn't exactly that surprising. "And what of the alchemist? Do you have the slightest clue as to what his majesty was thinking or feeling when the wild magic took shape? For all we are aware, your friend may be nothing more than an empty shell held together by the king's desperate wishes." He had barely even finished speaking by the time he had come to regret what he had said, though it wasn't as if Toriel would have had the presence of mind to read properly the wave of disgust that whispered free of him. Fury and a distraught form of horror tore violently at the air and rippled away from her in the wake of what he had said, as if the world around them had cried out against the suggestion... But Arun wasn't paying attention to the two royals in the least anymore, or even really the chaotic energy that kept rippling off of them when ever one or the other got too worked up. His focus was elsewhere when the queen rose her voice on the other side of the door, her words caught somewhere between indignant fury and a panicked sort of worry. "No! You are wrong! Gaster is just taking longer to recover from this than the other skeletons are! Mistfall meant more to him than you could ever imagine! He is not lost to us! He may have retreated into himself... but he is still with us! I have seen it in his eyes when he looks upon his clansmen, he is not yet lost!"  
  
It didn't exactly matter anymore that she had risen her voice or that the energy twisting away from her had changed. Arun was too busy staring at the sleeping skeleton from underneath the sheets where he had hidden himself away to notice. Was Gaster really hurt that badly? Ethril had said that he was injured and Toriel had mentioned it would take a long time for him to heal. But it had already been a long time if he remembered what he had overheard from the servants... almost three weeks had come and gone. For almost three weeks he had been resting and recuperating... That was normally more than enough time to recover from anything minor and easily enough time to regain one's strength. Arun had been injured and fallen ill more than enough times to know that much at the very least... And even if it took longer for skeletons to heal, as far as he knew that was just because they were made entirely of bone. If his own experience was anything to go by, damaged bones always took a painfully long amount of time to heal. But three weeks... the alchemist shouldn't have still been so exhausted and weak, should he? It might have been true that a monster was weakened drastically when suffering from an illness or injury... but Gaster's magic levels should have started returning to normal by now... shouldn't they? What was more than that, Arun didn't remember seeing him limping and he doubted a broken arm would have been taxing enough to make him so tired. He couldn't help but be worried with what he had overheard, even if he didn't quite understand what wild magic was or why it was dangerous. And with the uncertainty of a child who knew they were getting into something they shouldn't have been, he carefully crept over to the sleeping skeleton.  
  
Hesitance marked Arun's every movement, there was even once or twice where he froze in place entirely, as if afraid that the slightest noise might cause the alchemist to stir. There were no words to describe how relieved he was when Gaster didn't so much as twitch, even when the bed dipped slightly where the child settled himself beside his sleeping figure. Slowly, he began to search the older monster for any signs of injury... Feeling very much as though Toriel would have been upset with him for doing so, even if he wasn't really disturbing the sleeping skeleton in any way. From what Arun could see, his skull wasn't so much as scratched. So that probably meant it wasn't a head injury... maybe... he honestly didn't really know hardly anything about medicine himself... Just what he had learned by being the one other people fussed over and the sparse bits of information he had gleaned from Gaster's previous visits, when the two of them had the chance to speak. If nothing else, the alchemist seemed to be resting peacefully enough... maybe it wouldn't hurt if he just took a peek? Toriel did say he could help after all, and how was he supposed to be of help if he didn't know what was wrong with him? An unsettling feeling swept over the child, much as though he were being watched... though, he was just a bit too far along to turn back now. The sense he had that the queen wouldn't want him prying any further, washed over him and crawled up his back like a cold chill. But in the face of his concern for Gaster, the childish urge to turn away and pretend he hadn't gone as far as he had... was forgotten. Even the matter of his parents and the hundreds of questions spiraling around in his soul as to their fate, seemed to have faded and vanished in the wake of it.  
  
All Arun could really think about at that moment, was the sleeping skeleton and trying to find out exactly how badly he was hurt... all for the sake of helping him recover. If neither of his legs were the problem, if his arms weren't damaged, and even his skull was intact... the injury had to be somewhere else, somewhere that he just couldn't see at the moment... That narrowed down the possibilities a lot, though there weren't very many places he could look without running the risk of waking him up. Still, it wasn't enough to stop him from trying at the very least, though he definitely wasn't going to take any chances. With few choices given to him, the child decided to start off by pulling at the collar of Gaster's tunic. It seemed as good a place to look as any, especially if the skeleton had taken a nasty fall and landed strangely as Arun was assuming. He hadn't known exactly what to expect when he had started his searching, but what he saw froze him in place. The crisp white bandages looped around the alchemist's collar bone glared back at him horrifyingly, standing out far more than they by any rights should have against bone barely a shade darker than them. Pulled tight as they were and layered so generously, it had to be bad, he had to be in pain. It was no wonder Gaster was so exhausted, it was no wonder that he had fallen asleep the moment he had been given the chance to rest. Well... at least now he knew what was wrong, even if he didn't like the look of those bandages. But just when he was ready to turn away, right when he assumed that what he had already seen was the worst of it... That was when he noticed the alchemist's tunic was resting strangely over his chest, as if something else was hiding under the fabric. And upon closer inspection, he realized that the raised sections seemed to mark a clear diagonal path across his rib cage.  
  
It was certainly odd as far as the child was concerned, and more than just a little bit worrying. For several seconds, he wondered if he should have just accepted what he found as being enough. It was clear to him that Gaster was suffering from some very badly broken bones. Did he really need to know just how much damage he had taken? He already felt that Toriel would be upset with him for poking his nose into matters where it didn't belong. But even that horrible crawling feeling that he was doing something wrong wasn't enough to stop him. And after a few moments of hesitation, he carefully slid a little closer to the foot of the bed. There were some advantages to being so much smaller than the alchemist, if nothing else he didn't really disturb their surroundings much while he was being careful... Though he still kept an eye on him while he knelt down and reached for the edge of his tunic. If Gaster started to wake up... there really wasn't very much he could do to hide or pretend he hadn't been looking, and he knew that rather well. Still, he wasn't about to stop just yet. Beyond even his worry there was something else tugging at his mind now, telling him to continue where he should have stopped. Arun was curious, and in the end that was what led him to shift the older monster's tunic upward so he could get a real look at his ribs. An unnatural chill crawled over him when he caught sight of the bandages threaded through Gaster's rib cage and a vicious wave of nausea struck him rather suddenly. It looked so much worse than anything he could have ever expected, and if anything it made the child feel as if he were going to be ill. For what it was worth... he tried to understand, he tried to come up with some sort of reasonable explanation for the way the bandages made it look like the breaks all lined up so perfectly.  
  
But in the end it didn't matter how hard Arun tried to unpuzzle what had happened to Gaster, there was no form of accident that could have caused his injuries. For all of his efforts, he just couldn't fathom what had caused the damage even if the answer was so simple. In his relatively short life, he had been sheltered from the thought that anyone... human or monster, would ever intentionally harm someone else like this. But the path the broken bones seemed to follow didn't leave much room for imagination and any excuses he could have made for what he was seeing didn't seem to fit. Rather reasonably, Arun had never been taught about battle wounds or any such grim things, Toriel never would have allowed him to learn of the dark side of life at such a young age. But he knew enough about accidents from experiencing his own fair share of mishaps, to know that this couldn't have been one. It might have been true that he was sheltered and young, but he was far from being stupid. If this had been an accident, the damage would have been more wide spread and either a lot worse or much less severe. It certainly shouldn't have looked like someone had taken a giant paintbrush and marked a clear path across the skeleton's ribs to use as a guideline for the bandages. Bones just didn't break like that, it wasn't like separate pieces would split along the same path under normal circumstances. Arun still remembered how after he had broken his arm for the first time, Gaster had taken the time to teach him about how bones handled stress. He remembered the alchemist explaining why they broke and how to better avoid it in the future. And no matter how he looked at it, the bandages made it seem like the bones had been broken in a way that completely contradicted everything he had been taught.  
  
It felt like an eternity to the child, the short time where he struggled against the only explanation that made any sense... and even then he still couldn't understand it. The thought that anyone would have intentionally harmed Gaster like this was utterly horrifying and all at once he had more than enough of looking at the bandages. In one panicked instant, Arun pulled the tunic back into place to hide the crisp wrappings and retreated to the other end of the bed again... where he went back to burying himself in the sheets. Nothing was making any sense to him that night, and everything was either turning out to be painful or terrifying. All he could think to ask was why. Why was the world suddenly looking so dark, so cruel? And... the conversation the boss monsters were having outside of the room was picking up again. The second prince's muffled voice was creeping into the room like a grim shadow, quiet and purposeful. Hadn't he heard enough already? He didn't want to hear any more, he didn't want to know what was going on anymore. He didn't want to learn of what ever grimness it was that had crept into his peaceful world. If anything, Arun wanted to disappear into the folds of cloth he had buried himself in. He wanted to forget everything he had seen... everything he had heard. But no amount of wishing served to help him block out Ethril's words, even if he refused to listen to them. "Wild magic is unpredictable, powerful and raw. As far as either of us are aware... what ever magic his majesty summoned, could be holding together a soul that has already lost the will to live. Are you prepared to face the consequences if that proves to be the truth? Will you be able to fight against it without knowing whether or not Gaster has the mind to face the coming dawn?"  
  
A stark silence hung between the two royals while Toriel's fury roiled through the air, mixed and melded with whispers of fear and worry. But Ethril didn't give her any time at all to respond to what he had said, he couldn't bear to stretch this out any further than it needed to be. A heavy sigh escaped him and within the next instant he had already started walking away from her. This only served to infuriate the queen all the further, she was absolutely livid and a shimmer of heat had already begun to swirl into the air around her. Before she could shout after him or so much as think to demand he turn around to face her however, Ethril had already glanced over his shoulder to cast a meaningful look back towards her. There was a certain almost unreadable sorrow somewhere in his cold eyes, an underlying worry and concern that she wasn't used to seeing anymore. It gripped her, froze her in place, and she could only stand and stare when the second prince turned his gaze back to the corridor before him. One last muttered threat whispered through the air between them, trailing behind Ethril and lingering on in the air even after he had departed. "If you do not speak with him about this, then I will." Toriel stared after him in silence, watching his distant figure retreat into the depths of the castle without another backward glance or whispered word.  
  
Over time, the shimmering heat around the queen slowly faded away and with it the suffocating anger that had been rippling away from her. The air grew lighter without such disturbed energies twisting through it, it was as if the world itself had sighed out in welcome relief. Unfortunately, relief was the last thing Toriel was feeling at that moment. After long enough, her gaze wandered from where Ethril had vanished and turned towards the tapestries that lined the walls. A certain grim heaviness weighed down her heart, something that told her Ethril's worries weren't completely unfounded. She wasn't entirely certain what disturbed her more. The fact that she had no choice but to agree with something the second prince had said... or the fact that she was actually considering the thought that Gaster's recovery might prove far more complicated than it should have been. Much as she hated to admit it, he was right. She needed to speak with Asgore and sort through this... And despite the second prince's harsh way of going about things, the results of his efforts couldn't be denied.  
  
That night, Toriel finally confronted her husband... That night, they finally spoke of what had happened to Gaster and to Mistfall. Neither the king nor the queen slept and though Toriel's worries for her husband were finally laid to rest... it was hardly a comfort. It had been an accident just as she had assumed, but that didn't stop Asgore from apologizing or blaming himself for the amount of worry it had caused her. What was more than that, he wasn't certain for himself when the wild magic had taken shape or even really what he had been thinking at the time... which meant that they didn't really know what to expect in regards to their friend's condition. If nothing else... they weren't the only ones who found sleep impossible that night. The second prince of the monster kingdom stalked the halls restlessly until dawn's early light, by far too disturbed to even consider retiring for the evening. Even little Arun failed to find peace that night, though he managed to fool Toriel when she returned to check on him. In the end it was only the slumbering alchemist who found any respite from the darkness that had seeped into their world, for he remained by far too weak to even dream.

 

 

 

 

 

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Putting the author's note here, because the text limit for notes is too small for me to say everything I need to say for this chapter.  
**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

Why is it kids always end up sticking their noses into places they shouldn't and end up ruining their childhoods in one way or another?  
And yes, I know some of you out there have done something like this as a kid before.  
I know I have... It involved holiday magic and my parents thinking I was asleep. T.T  
And now to address the elephant in the room.  
  
Wild magic... ah... where do I start...  
Well, to put it bluntly, if you've ever watched the old movie: The Last Unicorn... it's a lot like what Schmendrick keeps doing despite the obvious drawbacks.  
While controlled magic is shaped and directed by deliberate effort, intent and the will of the monster using it... wild magic ignores most of those things.  
The main difference between controlled magic and wild magic is that wild magic has very little to do with conscious choice.  
With wild magic, it's a lot like the monster using it is throwing most if not all of their magical energy to the winds with absolutely no conscious control over what it does.  
You can think of it kind of like a game of dice... what are your odds of killing yourself and everyone around you just because of a stray emotion?  
The results are most commonly unpredictable, explosive and dangerous.  
Wild magic is defined and shaped by what ever the creature responsible for summoning it was feeling at the time the magical energy was released.  
While it can be summoned intentionally, wild magic most commonly manifests in moments of extreme panic or other such drastic emotional strain.  
You can think of it sort of like someone loosing it and lashing out or blacking out in fear or anger.  
It is often shapeless, directionless and nearly unpredictable.  
Not only does the creature responsible have no control over what will happen, but it is also impossible to call the magical energy back after the wild magic has already manifested.  
Another thing to remember is that depending upon the amount of magical energy the creature using it has at their disposal... It can prove quite lethal to the caster.  
To put it simply, if one was trying to accomplish something far beyond the scope of their power with the use of wild magic, they would die as a result.  
In the end they would have tried to do something that was impossible for them to achieve...  
Without conscious decision making or really any form of control playing any part...  
And without the time or any real ability to do anything about it...  
It would be impossible for the creature responsible to realize their mistake or change their mind before it was too late...  
Their magical energy would be expended and they would turn to dust.  
This end result can either become more or less likely depending upon the emotional state of the monster responsible for summoning the wild magic...  
And what ever it was they were trying to do with it...  
The more volatile their emotional state and the more vague or scattered their thoughts are at the time, the more likely it is that something will go wrong.  
  
Fortunately for Gaster and Asgore, the king's wishes were pretty clear to him at the time the wild magic took shape and they were relatively straightforward.  
He just wanted his friend to survive, and it wasn't as if he didn't have the power to hold Gaster together all on his own.  
He hadn't started turning to dust and his HP hadn't dropped to zero yet, it was still within Asgore's magical capabilities to stabilize him.  
He more or less just lacked the knowledge and experience to keep him alive while Gaster was wasting all of his own energy and strength.  
As for why Gaster didn't manifest wild magic while he was panicking... well... I think that should be rather apparent....  
He didn't exactly have very much magical energy left to him at all beyond what was holding him together... beyond what Asgore was giving him in order to keep him alive....  
Furthermore, he wasn't quite lashing out blindly with his magic either now was he?  
Not only had he been too weak to quite summon anything impactful while he was so scattered, but he had been focusing on trying to form a very precise type of magic.  
Gaster was still trying to summon his spare set of hands, he was still trying to create constructs that he would need to **_consciously_** **maintain, direct and** **_cont_ _rol_ _._**  
  
If you'll recall... While Gaster's magic remained weak and wavering, Asgore's changed suddenly and violently out of no where.  
**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~flashback~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**  
He wasn't ready to say farewell to his friend, he wasn't ready to see the day when they could no longer share in one another's company. It almost felt as though something broke inside of him, something snapped, and the faint green shimmer around the king's paw abruptly erupted into a much steadier glow that encompassed both he and the skeleton entirely.  
**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**  
He lost his composure and he wasn't quite focusing on the healing magic per-say anymore...  
You'll notice that I never said he was typically paying strict attention to the magic he was using after that... or at least... not to what it was doing.  
He was more or less just maintaining an outward flow while it sort of... shaped itself?  
If it were regular healing magic, that never would have worked.  
He would have had to remain carefully focused on the magic itself or it would have faded.  
Under normal circumstances, he probably should have noticed that something wasn't quite right, but given how things were at the time...  
It's not exactly surprising that he was a bit too preoccupied to realize where he slipped up, and it's not like he could have afforded to be picky either.  
  
Like I said above, wild magic _is_ likely to be explosive and dangerous.  
But that's not always the case, as you have seen and will see in the future, sometimes it can be subtle and no where near as damaging.  
What happened in their case was thankfully something a bit less extreme...  
Though that is largely in part due to the fact that Asgore had already been maintaining a controlled form of magic **before** the wild magic had been given the opportunity to manifest.  
Instead of the wild magic manifesting in a way that could have killed either of them, all it really did was augment what he was already doing.  
Since it was a channeled form of magic instead of a sudden burst, the change didn't even use up too much of his magical energy...  
And since it was closer to a hybrid of the two forms of magic instead of being strictly wild magic...  
He could have stopped at any time without it hurting either of them so long as Gaster was close enough to being stable that it could have been considered that the wild magic had finished its job.  
In this case, the two of them got very lucky.  
There are a lot of ways this could have gone **very wrong.**  
  
To emphasize my point, I bring you to the topic of Lady Elunara.  
Wild magic will frequently give who ever uses it the ability to do things that they would otherwise lack the knowledge, confidence or resolve to manage on their own.  
You can think of it sort of like a leap of faith... at least... when one is using it intentionally.  
In the case of accidental wild magic, the consequences are almost always quite dire.  
As I said above, the more volatile the emotional state and the more vague or unreasonable their wishes, the worse off everyone is going to be.  
And to put it bluntly, Lady Elunara's wishes weren't exactly the best catalyst as you might have guessed... and... her husband got caught up in it trying to save her from herself...  
So, now we have little Arun, who should have died the night he was born...  
With a power that shouldn't exist either...  
And a frail constitution that makes his life far more difficult than it should be...  
  
And seeing as we are on that depressing note....  
The reason for the poor guy's fragile health is actually due to the fact that he no longer has _**either**_ of his _**biological**_ parents.  
As some if not all of you must be aware, a portion of the energy from a boss monster's soul will transfer to their offspring over time as they grow and age.  
This will result in the boss monster aging themselves and developing a real lifespan where they otherwise would have remained young indefinitely.  
Seeing as both of Arun's real parents are dead, his soul is missing the vital sort of support it needs while he's growing up.  
Which means that his soul is too weak to fight off most illnesses and it makes him a lot more fragile than he should be.  
Under normal circumstances (At least in this AU, for reasons that I'm not going to divulge at the moment.) if Arun's parents died, he still should have received a portion of the energy from their souls anyway... though that would have resulted in its own slew of problems seeing as he was an infant at the time...  
Getting back on track...  
Since they died in an accident caused by wild magic, there wasn't exactly anything left for the little guy.  
  
Aaaaaand.... I think that covers everything.... I'll have to wait and see if any of you have any questions. ^^'


End file.
